Fallen Angels #5 “Lost and Found” (August 1987)



Theme: Hunter/gatherers

The Story: Somehow the gang has returned from Devil Dinosaur’s planet to Earth, bringing Devil and Moon Boy along. Everybody runs around for the whole issue stealing enough food to feed a Tyrannosaurus. Good luck with that! Then Devil Dinosaur accidentally steps on Don the Lobster, smooshing him and fulfilling the “This Issue – an Angel Dies!” blurb on the cover.



Boom Boom, pining over Madrox, is delighted to run into the rogue Madrox duplicate out on the street. What a coincidence! He talks with the other Madrox about not wanting to rejoin into a single body.

Who Are Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy? One of the comics debuting during Jack Kirby’s late 70s stint at Marvel was a prehistoric yarn about a T-Rex and his pet monkey-boy. The two lived in the prehistoric past and on an alternate dimension, which tended to limit their interactions with the Marvel Universe. But they did manage to come to “our” Nevada once, and their own dimension saw brief visits from The Hulk, The Thing, and Godzilla. But other than that, they existed only in the nine issues of Devil Dinosaur which Kirby produced in 1978. Devil’s red color was eventually claimed to be a mutation.



My Two Cents: Did we miss an issue? The last page of the previous issue showed the Beat Street Club encountering Devil Dinosaur on another planet. Now they are back in the clubhouse somehow. This is like one of those Silver Age stories that falls apart as soon as you start asking basic questions about how and why people are doing the things they are doing. How did the gang get back to Earth, without a door for Ariel to activate with her power? How did Devil Dinosaur fit through whatever door Ariel made? Why did Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur come to Earth? Why is Devil docilely sitting in a room barely big enough to contain him?

Ariel, Gomi, and Warlock discover that one wall of the Clubhouse is connected to a winch and can be raised into the ceiling to give access to loading bay on the other side, a space large enough for Devil Dinosaur to occupy. How convenient! No reason is given why Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy agreed to come to Earth, or how Devil fit through whatever door Ariel made. At this point Jo Duffy is just throwing the plot forward and hoping we don’t ask any questions about little things like “Why are people doing these things?” and “How are people doing these things?” I have a feeling Jim Shooter was out of town when these issues were released, and editor Ann Nocenti seems to be asleep at the wheel.

There’s also some confusion regarding Moon Boy’s speech. We see his word balloons in English, but comments by the other characters indicate that they can’t understand what he’s saying. OK, he’s an alien, so that would make sense. But then how to they know to talk about “Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur” in the first place? Maybe that was part of the research that Ariel did before going to pick up Moon and Devil in the first place, but it’s not said. And that wouldn’t explain how Moon Boy knows names like “Beat Street.”

Overall, it’s another meandering story that gives us no idea what’s going on in this series. There’s no clear protagonist with a goal in mind. Bobby and Warlock are bit players at this point. The cast is too large to give us a clear focus. We do learn a little about Ariel’s motivation: She is gathering mutants because her own planet (yes, she’s an alien) has no mutants, which is apparently a problem. She has promised Chance money for helping.

Another art change, with Val Mayerik inking Joe Staton.

You are correct! I will fix it.

Fallen Angels #7 “Triple Crisis” (October 1987)



Theme: Captured! Eventually

The Story: The denizens of Coconut Grove quickly garb our heroes are in some very 80s-looking clubwear. For most of this issue, the characters just sort of cavort around the nightclub and re-deliver exposition about their abilities which we’ve already heard in previous issues. Then things get ugly toward the end. Ariel has brought these mutants here so that her people can experiment on them and develop similar abilities themselves. Everybody is captured, even Ariel, who despite her protestations really is a mutant.

My Two Cents: Yay, back to Gammill on breakdowns and Palmer on the rest of the art!



For a minute at the end of the last issue it appeared that the overall plot of the series was finally lurching forward. But instead this issue, like the three before it, is very long on various random conversations without much forward motion until the very end. I do not know what the “triple crisis” mentioned in the issue title is.

Ariel claims to be the descendant of the trickster character Ariel from William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” She reiterates that her power doesn’t work without a door on each end for her to manipulate, though this contradicts what we saw happen in the trip to Devil Dinosaur’s planet.

Devil Dinosaur is barely taller than a human in some of these frames.



The planet “Coconut Grove” may refer to an actual place in Florida with that name, or to the 1980 song “American Dream” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, in which the singer’s woman wants to vacation in Augusta, GA while he wants to go to the Caribbean, and so “We’ll split the difference [and] go to Coconut Grove.” It’s a vacation spot but also a compromise.

Wolverine #1 “I’m Wolverine” (September 1982)



The Story: In a six page prologue, Logan tracks a crazed bear in the Canadian Rockies, ends him, and then punishes the hunter who poisoned the bear. “The bear lasted longer. But I let him live.” Then comes the meat of the series.

Logan’s letters to his Japanese girlfriend Mariko have been returned unopened, and her family won’t accept his calls. Traveling to Japan, he discovers that she’s been married to settle a debt of her father, a Yakuza boss. Logan confronts her and learns that her husband abuses her. Ninjas poison Logan with shuriken, and he engages in an honor duel with Mariko’s father, Lord Shingen, using wooden practice swords. Logan becomes enraged and switches to using his claws, a serious breach of the honor code of duels, but Shingen defeats Logan anyway and dumps his body in a Tokyo alley, where he’s found by a mysterious woman warrior who somehow knows him.



My Two Cents: Chris Claremont recalls that this series originated in a six hour car ride he took with Frank Miller from San Diego Comic-Con to Los Angeles. (It took so long because of Border Patrol searches backing up traffic.) They agreed that Wolverine would be more interesting as a “failed samurai” than simply a bloodthirsty berserker. Miller reportedly threw out the script that Claremont sent him for the first issue of the series, obliging Claremont adapt a script, mostly an internal narrative monologue, to accompany Miller’s images. Frank was still scripting Daredevil for Klaus Janson but was no longer drawing it himself, and Wolverine showcased Miller’s love for balletic fight scenes. And ninjas.

This story is as straightforward as can be imagined. Logan’s goals are clear and classic: His beloved is in a danger that he must fix but cannot. His attempt to intervene only discredits him in her eyes, or so it seems. His claws only get him into trouble, violating the rules of the engagement in a society that cares more about how you win or lose than whether you win.

Kudos go not only to Miller for his excellent compositions but to Josef Rubinstein for excellent inking. This issue is simply fun to look at, story aside. Miller draws Wolverine’s claws impossibly; they are both too long and too bladelike (surely an inch tall at least) to fit invisibly inside his forearms. But it fits with the ninja theme. Future artists sometimes seemed to be in an unofficial contest to make the claws as impossibly large as possible.

When monologuing about Mariko’s lineage, Logan discusses his own: “I know my father.” Does he really know his father is Sabretooth at this point? If not, who is he talking about?



Logan also talks about all these letters that he’s sent Mariko that have just now been returned. To where were they returned? The middle of the Canadian Rockies? Surely his mailing address is at the Xavier Institute these days.

Claremont definitely envisions Sabretooth as Logan's father today, with his mother being an angel who lives in Madripoor. But I was wondering whether that was what Claremont thought in 1982 when he wrote that Logan knew who his father was. The story of Logan evolved substantially over time, even just under Claremont's pen.

chaykinstevens & rberman -- According to the last three posts here; correct me if I'm wrong here. This is the first time that I've learned that Sabertooth is Wolverine Father?!? ... I did not know that.