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Post by spoon on Mar 19, 2024 22:30:37 GMT -5
I read The Uncanny X-Men #141 and #142 in the "Days of Future Past" trade paperback last night... Traditionally, I've never been much of an X-Men fan, but in the last year I read the "Dark Phoenix" saga and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The events of these two issues take place only 2 or 3 issues after the "Dark Phoenix" story, which is some going on Chris Claremont's part: two extremely well-regarded and influential storylines within the space of a year! I was a little shocked when I got the trade paperback collection that this arc is only two issues long; I think I was expecting it to be a good five or six issues. Still, despite being disappointed at the length of the story, "Days of Future Past" certainly packs in a lot into a short space. These are two very dense comics, with a lot of dialogue, a lot of big ideas, and quite a lot of panels per page. Even though much of the story takes place in the present, going to a possible future for more than 2 issues isn't something they'd do at that point. Part of the impression that DoFP was big might come from the fact that like Dark Phoenix: (1) there are echoes of it in future stories; and (2) it's been adapted in other media. Like even though Rachel is a future character, Claremont is far from done with her. One interesting part of getting older is seeing so much futuristic sci-fi now back in the past. I remember when Transformers: The Movie took place in the far future of 2005. I think the criticism of Claremont as verbose, cliche-ridden, etc. can be blown of proportion relative to his skills. There's lots of more recent X-Men I haven't read, and I rarely re-read any post-Claremont stuff (as in after his first run). However, I do know this was revisited. I know for sure it was a big part of the story in X-Men Unlimited #4 in the early 90s. That was a quarterly usually with a single big page count story, like an annual on steroids. Prior to that I don't recall it come up. I might need to re-read the Brotherhood story from around #177-178, because I can't remember whether it's mentioned there. Yes, Claremont did his share of pastiches of other works, but I think Terminator is a good example of major fictional work that seemed to draw on Claremont's previous X-Men work, whether intentionally or just coincidentally. Since you enjoyed some of the John Byrne's stuff, I would recommend the rest of Byrne's run and Dave Cockrum's first run that proceeded it. So that would be Giant Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94-143. I re-read all of it other past few months. Also, you may like the later stories that involve Rachel starting around Uncanny X-Men #188. The From the Ashes TPB reprinting #168-176 is also worth checking out.
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Post by spoon on Mar 16, 2024 20:24:24 GMT -5
I finished off the rest of the X-Men Epic Collection: The Fate of the Phoenix by reading Uncanny X-Men #139-143, the Wolverine/Hercules story from Marvel Treasury Edition #26, the Angel story from Marvel Treasury Edition #27, the Storm/Black Panther back-up story from Marvel Team-Up #100, and Phoenix: The Untold Story. The story from Treasury Edition #27 is the only one I haven't read before. Actually, I didn't re-read every word of Phoenix: The Untold Story. For those who don't know, it was a one-shot that printed the intend original version of Uncanny X-Men #137, before Jim Shooter took umbrage at the fact that Phoenix wasn't going to die for her crimes and forced changes for the version that actually saw publication. Since the published version of #137 is in the same TPB, this time I just flipped back to note and read the changed parts.
Uncanny #139-140 is a two-parter where Wolverine and Nightcrawler work with half of Alpha Flight to fight Wendigo in Canada. Meanwhile, we get various character bits with X-Men at Xavier's mansion, particularly Kitty Pryde starting out at the school. People will debate whether Claremont's X-Men (or specifically the Byrne era) is phenomenally good or overrated, but the cover to #139 is one of the simple joys of the series. It's the "Welcome to the X-Men, Kitty Pryde. Hope You Survive the Experience" cover. It's a really amusing combination of bright colors and life-or-death stakes of super-heroes comics, particularly with Kitty's big grin surrounded by musing about her possible demise. Also, Angel seems to have casually drifted back on to the team after helping them in the Dark Phoenix Saga. There's a bit of Untold Story dialogue that was altered in #137 that would've helped to set this up, with Angel noting he misses being a super-hero. He also get Kitty being weirded out by Nightcrawler again (he's sad about it), the debut of Wolverine's brown and tan costume, and the first appearance of dance teacher Stevie Hunter. Like a psycho, Storm is already jealous of how much Kitty likes Stevie.
Also, Heather Hudson, the wife of Vindicator (eventually renamed Guardian) makes her first appearance. We also a bunch of Wolverine's back story about the Hudsons discover a feral Wolverine in the woods and sculpted him into a Canadian super-agent. We're also told that fighting the Hulk was his first mission. This should've made readers wonder how he ended up a wild mess in the Canadian Rockies, since there's been scripting (like the reference to Monte Cassino in Annual #4) that his experience in the civilized world predates that. When Heather calls Wolverine Logan, Kurt says he never knew his real name. Logan counters that the X-Men never asked. I'm sorry, but this is a pile of revisionist obviously driven by the creative team's decision to make Wolverine the new star. Kurt is such an amiable gentleman; he literally bows to Heather in the next panel! It's totally implausible that he would avoid asking Wolverine's real name. I think any teammate would, but Peter and Sean also seem like people who couldn't avoid but be friendly. And Scott would ask because he'd feel like he needed to know. Anyway, it's too bad Byrne wasn't such a Nightcrawler, because he does a great job of conveying Kurt's character in moments like the bow. We also learn more about Alpha Flight member like Snowbird. The change in Wolverine's character is demonstrated when he calms Snowbird down from the effects of one of her animal transformations. In the Cockrum era, he'd probably fight her instead.
Claremont and Byrne had been credited as co-plotters for a while. Interestingly, this Canadian story has Byrne credited as the sole plotter.
Uncanny X-Men #141-142 is of course Days of Future Past. It also gives us the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, led by Mystique who debuted in the Claremont written Ms. Marvel a couple years earlier. The roster is filled by old school foe Blob and three new characters (Destiny, Pyro, and Avalanche). It's nuts that they'd eventually become a U.S. government team, given that they're first mission was to assassinate a prominent U.S. Senator. How do you trust them? The X-Men versus Brotherhood fight sequences are very well done. It's great when Byrne gets to draw the X-Men against another team rather than a single foe or random henchmen. It's ironic that #142 has one of the most famous Byrne era covers, but it was drawn by Terry Austin (because Byrne's cover got lost in the mail). Of course, the cover for #141 may even more famous. Oddly, Jean Grey's mostly obscured head appears on the wanted poster and then we get Rachel in the story. She doesn't get a surname in the story, but the redheaded telepath/telekinetic suggested her eventual origin as the daughter of Jean Grey. How could this be? Was it because it was already plotted before the old ending to #137 was scrapped, and they just decided they're weren't going to rewrite this one two? Was this already supposed to be an alternate Earth that Kitty went back to even though she thought it was her own past? Did they already want to hint that a Phoenix could always rise again? Also, how dumb does Sebastian Shaw's greed make him that he's push to start a new Sentinel program? The story is also uses the future as a chance to foreshadow without being committed to it. Kitty and Peter are a couple, and Magneto is a nicer guy than he used to be.
Uncanny X-Men #143 is Kitty Pryde alone against a N'Garai demon. The opening scene is a flashback to a scene with Storm from the original N'Garai story. It's interesting to see that Claremont repeats much of his original script verbatim, but also alters portions of it. Some of that is changing spoken dialogue to thought balloons. It's cool to see one-off stories like this. It's a little odd that after Wolverine tries to slice Nightcrawler open for kissing Mariko Yashida under the mistletoe, her reaction is not to immediately dumb the boyfriends she's seen behave like a violent psycho. Then again, Sunfire is her cousin.
Given that Cyclops had been a centerpiece of the series for the past 5 years, editors notes in some of the issues when Cyclops is gone from the team insist he is on a leave of absence. After being gone for #139-142, Scott gets a cameo when he speaks to Kitty on the phone to wish everyone back at the school a Merry Christmas. He also seeks a job from the beautiful fishing boat captain Aleytys "Lee" Forrester. How soon is too soon for a rebound relationship under the circumstances? The Marvel Treasury Edition stories are from 1980, but placed after a trio of 1981 issues of X-Men. The chronology doesn't work for the Wolverine story, because Logan is drowning his sorrows at a bar because Jean is into Cyclops, who Wolvie thinks sucks. This is more like a Cockrum era story. There's not much to write about the Angel story except it features the unusual art pairing of Brent Anderson and Bob McLeod (I feel like they are tonally different) and Angel's boots look weird.
I'm not too excited by the Storm/Black Panther story, but it is a Claremont/Byrne tale. It turns out Ororo and T'Challa have a backstory from their childhood days. The villain is an evil Afrikaner (South African of Dutch descent). One of his henchmen who spouts racial slurs has dark skin, which seems more likely a coloring error than self-loathing.
The main change from The Untold Story to the published #137 is the ending when Phoenix is depowered instead of dying. It's seems weird until a realize that Lilandra's dialogue about destroying Phoenix and insuring she does not exist anymore don't explicitly include stating that Jean will die. There are dialogue changes sprinkled throughout the issue, but the most concentrated and interesting are in the scenes of individual X-Men the night before the trial by combat. In Untold Story, the characters reflect more on their own situations, while in the published #137 their musings are more Jean-centric. For example, in Untold, Nightcrawler thinks more about his workout, Angel about how he misses being a hero, Wolverine about Mariko, Colossus about his deceased brother (retconned back to life in the 90s), and Scott about the orphanage. Scott's musings lead Jean to say she likes who he's grown to be. The revised dialogue, I'm guessing at Shooter's insistence, have the characters all musing on the morality to protect Jean with the horror of what Phoenix has done. In another move that seems to be about promoting Wolverine's star status, he has one of the more pro-Jean opinions.
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Post by spoon on Mar 16, 2024 11:23:42 GMT -5
The difficulty of a hypothetical is figuring out what's the sliding door moment that would allow the counterfactual to exist. There's cause and effect; it's not just like flipping a switch. I've been browsing through The X-Men Companion (a couple of books of interviews of creators published in the early 80s) as something informing my views.
One of the ingredients for the creation of the All-New, All-Different X-Men was that the series had been revived as a reprint series for several years and there were also several guest appearances by X-Men during the reprint era. Both were apparently received well enough to create interest in a revival, so does the history get massaged enough for the just a 60s relic scenario? "Just a relic" is an unusual assessment, because the X-Men were an existing thing in the early 70s, albeit in the reduced reprint and guest appearance capacity.
Also, Wolverine's creation according to Roy Thomas may partially have created because his pitch for an international team of X-Men was out there, so creating new characters who could might be used in that new series was encouraged.
So if relic means that X-Men never even had a period of reprints, than it would probably mean the team/characters would go the guest appearance route, but those appearances would be less frequent as there would be less interest among readers. If all past events happen and it's just at the end they don't decide to go with the pitch of a new series, then I think the X-Men continue to make guest appearances. They either get revived at a later date with the original members (but probably not Beast), Havok, and Polaris as potential members, with the possibility that Sunfire and/or Banshee get folder in. Or if were not allowed a revival of the series under the thought exercise, then after a while some of the characters may end up as Defenders or Avengers.
Also, keep in mind that the new X-Men weren't created out of whole cloth when the pitch started. A lot of it came from sketches that Dave Cockrum had been working on potentially to use for Legion of Super-Heroes or a LOSH spin-off. While Storm was a combination of elements from different characters, the visual for Nightcrawler was largely unchanged from work Cockrum did before he was assigned to X-Men. So at some point we'd probably get characters that had elements of those sketches in whatever series Cockrum is working on instead of X-Men.
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Post by spoon on Mar 11, 2024 23:17:43 GMT -5
I re-read X-Men Annual #4 ("Nightcrawler's Inferno"), by Claremont, Romita Jr., and McLeod. The art team is a sort of sneak preview, because years later JRjr and McLeod would be the pencilers of Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants. It's interesting to read a story with a convincing fake of Dante's Inferno shortly after reading a similar story from Ka-Zar that was published about a year later.
This story has been slotted into the Epic Collection immediately after Uncanny X-Men #138, so it has the first in-story mention that Storm is the new team leader. She doesn't get to do much leading though. She's taken out of commission for a while, but when she is in the fight, she doesn't seem any different from the other members.
This is the story where it's revealed that Nightcrawler's girlfriend, unbeknownst to him, is actually his adoptive sister Jimaine Szardos. She also a Romani witch. It's quite amazing that Kurt didn't recognize her, since it appears she changed her clothing and hairstyle, but not her face. Ethically, I don't know how I feel about tracking down Kurt without feeling who she is. It also kind of sucks that Kurt realizes that Amanda wasn't weirded out by his appearance because she was raised alongside him. Wouldn't it have been awesome if Amanda was okay with Kurt's appearance because she was a normal person who just like him and wasn't freaked out by mutants. I do like Amanda being a witch, but Claremont could've still done that without making her Kurt's long lost adoptive sister. For some reason, these annuals often don't stick with me like the regular monthly issues. I had totally forgotten that Kurt killed his adoptive brother in a fight because the brother, Stefan, had been murdering local children. It's retconned that the villagers chasing Kurt in Giant-Size X-Men one suspected him of being the murderer. I'm not sure I like this retcon either. Isn't it better to be purely prejudice about his appearance rather than misjudging the evidence of a genuine threat. Also, Kurt kills Stefan because when they were kids Stefan made Kurt promise he would kill him if he ever turned evil. What a bizarre thing to say! What strange hole did Claremont pull that plot point out of?
There are a couple of interesting bits of trivia in this issue. Doctor Strange is a guest star. While he is examining the seemingly dead Nightcrawler, he mentioned that he assumed by his appearances that Nightcrawler was some human/demon hybrid, but examination reveals him to be fully human. That undermines the retcon I've heard Chuck Austen made in his maligned run decades later. Also, when Wolverine was first depicted unmasked, he looked older than the young hothead he's seemed to be. There have also been some references in scripts that suggest he's older than his teammates (e.g., he did this or that years ago), but nothing that requires him to be significantly beyond the age of a typical human's physical prime. I believe this issue may have the first reference that really dates Logan. At one point, he thinks to himself that he hasn't weather like a storm in the fake Hell since a winter he spent "below Monte Cassino." To me that suggest he means the World War II Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944. If he didn't seriously lie about his age, that would mean he's over 50 years old when this story takes place.
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2024 14:17:10 GMT -5
My re-read of Giant-Size X-Men #1 through Uncanny X-Men #138 in late 2023/early 2024 has now linked up my late 2021 re-read of Uncanny x-Men #139-167. That project was based around Cockrum's second run, but I included the end of Byrne and the beginning of Paul Smith as I thought those were cleaner breaks in the story arcs than the changes of pencilers. On this re-read, I'm reading from recently purchased Epic Collections rather than the floppies, so I plan to read the rest of this Epic, which concludes the Byrne run and has a couple extras.
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Post by spoon on Mar 10, 2024 13:56:35 GMT -5
I re-read Uncanny X-Men #132-138. This is the rest of the Dark Phoenix Saga plus the aftermath/funeral issue "Elegy" (#138).
We begin with a short respite when Cyclops, against Xavier's orders, brings the X-Men to Angel's mountain home in New Mexico. Cyke is worried about the Hellfire Club somehow knowing non-public information about the X-Men. We get the famed butte scene where Jean holds back Scott's optic blast with her powers to see his whole face. As revealed by a thought balloon later in this issue and then in a flashback, this is where Jean finally reveals her "time slips" (really illusions) to Scott. Angel is a member of the Hellfire Club (but not its secret evil Inner Circle) due to inherit a membership, so he arranges invites for the X-Men to a format party at the Club's NYC mansion. Scott tells Jean (through his thoughts) that he likes her dress; I wonder if it's because of the big cutout in the front. Jean is running rignt into her black formal gown jinx. Anyway, we have Scott, Jean, Ororo, and Piotr at the party, while Logan and Kurt are sneaking in through the sewers while setting up Chekhov's Gun through some exposed wiring. Disaster unfolds for the X-Men as Jason Wyngarde takes full control of Jean, with the explicit Mastermind reveal to both the readers and Scott. Meanwhile, Inner Circle members capture all of the X-Men, except for Wolverine whom Harry Leland assumes is out of the picture after being dropped through several floors.
Wolverine has his famed star turn as he fights back alone in #133 while the rest of the X-Men are captive. We get a lot of Jean's illusory life created by Mastermind, plus Cyclops trying to rescue her via an astral plane sword duel with Mastermind. Scott is seemingly killed. But I guess the dying on the astral plane kills you in real world isn't an ironclad rule, because Scott gets up after a few seconds in #134 and it's the key to the X-Men's victory. The shock of seeing Scott "die" shocks Jean out of Mastermind's control, although she keeps it on the down-low at first. Scott and Jean telepathically arrange a comeback. Colossus nearly tears off Donald Pierce's arms off. Piotr also reacts to a remark from Pierce that doesn't reference mutation as an anti-mutant bigotry. I guess Claremont was trying to set up Pierce's bigotry (despite teaming with mutants) and forgot to make the dialogue clear. Wolverine serious wounds Leland. Jean leaves Mastermind a drooling mess, after discovering But the X-Men flee because the police are coming as part of the Club's plan to frame them. Wolvie doesn't give Cyke a hard time about the decision to flee, maybe reflecting the respect he gained for him during the Proteus arc. Beast, on Avengers monitor duty, flouts Avengers protocol by going to the aid of the X-Men without alerting Avengers.
The cliffhanger of #134 has Phoenix becoming Dark Phoenix - her costume now comes in red. I find the rampage of Dark Phoenix in #135-136 to be the least satisfying portion of the Dark Phoenix Saga. For one, Byrne's art is uncharacteristically weak in #136, perhaps because he had to make time for the double-sized #137. Jean is oddly thin in many panels, although I think that was probably a stylistic choice. The destruction of D'Bari is grim, but the scripting is much better executed than the art. There were aspects of Jean's visit her family that I liked, but the action sequences weren't as well executed as the battle with the Hellfire Club for example. Angel flies Xavier to New York, where he manages to defeat Dark Phoenix by putting psychic circuit breakers in place. It only works because the inwardly conflicted Jean was helping him against herself. In the end we get a telepathic marriage proposal from Scott to Jean which is accepted, so I guess that counts. But then they're all teleported to a Shi'Ar spacecraft.
What can I say about #137 that hasn't already been said? Byrne has talked about his secret ambition to try to work all the originals back in the roster. Of course, it has epic scale, inner conflict with the X-Men between their love for Jean and the horror at what she did, and Jean's final sacrifice. The story manages to work Angel and Beast into the action, with only poor Bobby missing out. While much better artistically than #136, I think #137 has a few odd-looking panels. In the last couple issues, the explanation for Phoenix did migrate a bit toward the retcon explanation of the Phoenix. We were previously told that Jean's love for Scott causing her to tap into something inside herself during the fateful space shuttle flight to access the full potential of her powers. The scripting now has suggestions of tapping into a cosmic force, and there are couple mentions of a destructive power in Shi'Ar legends.
In #138, Jean's funeral serves as a framing sequence for flashbacks of Scott telling the story of Jean and himself. This issue holds a special place for me. As a relatively new X-Men fan when the Classic X-Men reprint of this issue came out, this issue along with the Wolverine Saga mini were my main guideposts in learning about X-Men history and what back issues I wanted to track down. Claremont and Bryne do tweak past events a bit, but they do a great job weaving everything together and telling a compelling history. It also has a classic, often imitated cover of Cyclops departing. I'd like to figure out what all the old covers in the background are, because many are larger obscured by the foreground art. It's kind of funky that Nightcrawler hops out of a tree at the end of the funeral. Maybe a compromise to continue to forgo the image inducer while not revealing anything to mourners who don't know who the X-Men are. In Marvel Time news, Jean's tombstone reads 1956-1980. A previous issue noted that she isn't even 25 yet, and the tombstone would make her either 23 or 24.
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning end, so the last half page of #138 has Kitty arriving at the mansion. This pays off the end of #131 when it sounded like Kitty's parents had agreed to let her attend. No one is there to greet her. Shouldn't the X-Men have notified the unaccompanied minor they'd all be at a funeral? Kitty is wearing a t-shirt with a word on it in rhinestones. The beginning and end of the word are obscured by her jacket, but I read in an interview somewhere it supposed to say "bitch." It's kind of hilarious. I wonder if it's a liberal parenting style of if her parents' rough marriage means they're not really paying attention.
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Post by spoon on Mar 9, 2024 12:26:20 GMT -5
My question for those of you who read this run when it was originally published: did you realize Wyngarde was Mastermind through these hints before the actual reveal? My first issue of X-Men was #99, and I read it religiously most of the way up to #180 or so. But I didn’t recognize Mastermind. I’m not sure I had ever even seen Mastermind at that point. I’ll bet it took a lot of people by surprise. I don’t think Mastermind really appeared that often. He’s in all those issues at the very beginning with the Brotherhood. And I think he appeared a few times after that, but he wasn’t any kind of a major villain like Magneto or Juggernaut. It seems likely to me that he came completely out of left field for a lot of readers. But I would sure be interested to hear any different! Mastermind did have some later appearances. He should up during the Factor Three story, I think with other former Brotherhood members. Then he was one of the mutants captured by the Sentinels during the Neal Adams run. He also had some guest appearances in other titles while X-Men was in reprints. I've read some of them, but barely remember them. It's really the Marvel Chronology Project aiding my memory. There's are some issues of Avengers when Magneto showed up. That was when Avengers was picked up some X-Men plot threads because that also the period where Avengers had a Sentinel story when I think Quicksilver was injured. There are also a couple issues of Defenders that would've been the Alpha story where Magneto is reduced to infancy.
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Post by spoon on Mar 8, 2024 21:50:55 GMT -5
As iconic as it was, in hindsight, I think that story was a terrible mistake. I agree 100%. To me, it's a very powerful story. I also like the Luke Cage story immediately after, when Peter is grieving. What's the mistake? Is it that Gwen is a better fit for Peter as a realistic girlfriend (like they're both smart) and you think it would make for better stories with her still in the cast? That's something I see some merit. On the hand, I wouldn't agree that it's too heavy for the series.
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Post by spoon on Mar 8, 2024 21:20:53 GMT -5
Resuming by Claremont/Byrne X-Men re-read, I read Uncanny X-Men #129-131.
Since we start #129 with the X-Men departing Muir Island as Banshee stays behind, there yet another problem with the plotline about not realizing everyone surviving the destruction of Magneto's base. Banshee fell in love with Moira earlier in Claremont's run. It's implausible he wouldn't check in with Moira as soon as possible. I'd be interested in a What If based on Madrox, Havok, and/or Polaris joining when Banshee leaves the team.
Amusingly, the rough and tumble Wolverine is the only one with a pillow on the flight back to Salem Center. Jean has another hallucination of Jason Wyngarde on the flight. We get a nice resolution to the subplot of Scott's muted response to Jean's apparent death, when he reflects that he was bottling up his feelings because of all the losses he's had in his life. He also claims Colleen Wing was "just a friend." On the other, Jean reveals nothing of her hallucinations and instead makes out with Scott. The moral of the story is that you should be honest with your significant other instead of keeping secrets. Secrets make you more susceptible to psychic manipulation, which makes you give into your dark side, which makes you lose control, which eventually makes kill off the whole D'Bari species.
The X-Men find Xavier has returned to the mansion. This creates a conflict between the Prof, who has a new interest in micromanaging, and Cyclops, who has grown used to autonomy in running the team and thinks he knows the newbies better than Xavier. There's a cool Easter egg where Scott and Jean have some dialogue about the door to the Danger Room which is verbatim from X-Men #60. We see more Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost for the first time, with the revelation that the seemingly random Warhawk issue was a plot to wiretap Xavier's mansion. Cerebro detects two new mutants, so the team splits up to contact both simultaneously. Xavier doesn't mention which group Nightcrawler is assigned to, which might reflect how much the focus on him has declined.
The folks who go to Chicago meet Kitty Pryde. Unfortunately, her parents on the verge of a divorce and her dad looks vaguely like Ron Jeremy. We get some rare panels of Ororo with pupils and irises. The White Queen defeats the group of X-Men, but Kitty stows away on her hovercraft. Scott, Jean, and Kurt are sent to find the NYC mutant (Dazzler) in #130, which features an early John Romita Jr. Although Byrne draws most of the remaining covers of his run, it's remarkable how many up to this point have been drawn by other artists. Dazzler, despite being a disco singer, is at what seems more like a punk club. Claremont has this thing where he seems to be very into stuff like the punk scene while writing how putrid it is. It's like an edgelord performance. This team is more successful at its mission. Nightcrawler takes a phone call from Kitty, who got the X-Men's phone number from Storm. At the end of the issue, we get another image of Wyngarde's shadow looking like Mastermind's old appearance. My question for those of you who read this run when it was originally published: did you realize Wyngarde was Mastermind through these hints before the actual reveal?
In #131, we get the New York group rescuing the Chicago group. In a sad sequence, Kurt rescues Kitty, but then Kitty runs away from him. Kurt says that he's the one Kitty spoke to on the phone, but his appearance overshadows that. Kurt is the most charismatic, chill guy on the team, but the stigma of his appearance doesn't let his personality shine through to Kitty. Claremont & Byrne also do a great job showing off how Jean's powers have grown. She trashes a car then totally reassembles it. She alters her clothing at the molecular level. Cyke is basically the POV character in exploring how cool yet terrifying Jean's increasing power and sudden vicious streak are. Also, Kitty mentions how heavy Wolverine is, which reminds me that I think the first mentions of Logan's adamantium bones (not just claws) have only been over the last few issues. Despite this, a random Hellfire mercenary carried Logan with one arm back in #129.
It's implied Wolverine kills some mercenaries (the scripts are hinting that he kills people in some recent issues). Phoenix defeats the White Queen with some cool Phoenix imagery. It sounds like Jean killed Emma (but in some later issue IIRC it turns out she was in a coma). We also get one of the cool Byrne sequence with the X-Men in uniform followed by a panel in the same poses/positions in their civilian garb. Byrne continues the heights he's achieved in the Proteus arc. He's been great throughout, but his art reached another level starting with that arc. I also like his rendition of Jean's face a lot more compared to earlier in his run. There's also a very cool rapid-fire Nightcrawler teleportation sequence.
The last loose ends in #131 are what's up with our two new mutants. Dazzler remarks that she wants to be a singer rather than join the team. Scott is worried that she's seen the X-Men in their civilian identities, but they don't know much about Dazzler. It's true; we don't learn her real name or backstory. I suppose that was going to left to whoever handle her ongoing series, or maybe Claremont & Byrne didn't care too much to figure that out for a character they weren't going to keep. We actually only see two panels in two issues of her using her powers in combat. Kitty's parents are understandably upset that Xavier's student took her to the malt shop, and then Kitty goes missing for a couple of days. That would take a lot of explaining and Jean just give a damn anymore, so she alters their memories. Suddenly, Kitty's parents love Xavier's school. It helps that the headmistress of the competing school is unable to make her only follow-up visit.
Scott and Ororo and Charles are all alarmed by Jean's casual manipulations. But she's using her power for a good end. What's the worst that could happen?
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Post by spoon on Mar 7, 2024 22:54:45 GMT -5
I read The New Teen Titans: Games graphic novel by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. This is one of those legendary unfinished projects that actually got finished a couple decades later. George Perez really gets the chance to indulge in larger format pages. Also, the page count is so high that it can't reasonably be read in one sitting. The Introduction, Afterword, and feature on the original plot are very helpful in understanding the history of Games and the stops and starts in crafting it. It's noted that Wolfman was going through a period of writer's block, and it was actually Perez who typed up a plot outline based on the discussions the pair had. Wolfman had decided he would do any scripting until all the art was completed. However, since the plot outline wasn't a super-detailed page by page, panel by panel thing, that meant that some of original thoughts underlying the pages that would have been brought out in the script were lost from memory over the years. Unfortunately, I think it shows. The clues that would've led the Titans to the various terrorists aren't clearly shown, and sometimes I'm puzzling by how we're getting from point A to point B.
Since the story was far out-of-date in terms of the roster, etc. by the year of publication, it's an out of continuity time capsule. That allows for some risk-taking, because there's no problem with altering the characters from the status quo of their established histories. Almost of my Titans reading is actually from before the point on the book take place, despite it being a long delayed project, so I got a sense of the Titans from a bit beyond the era I know. Like I've through the grapevine about how polarizing Danny Chase was, but I may have actually read more of Danny in this one graphic novel than I have in all my previous reading combined.
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Post by spoon on Mar 5, 2024 23:22:20 GMT -5
I polished off X-Men Epic Collection vol. 6: Proteus by reading X-Men #123-128, Marvel Team-Up #89, and X-Men Annual #3. I think I've only read the Annual once before, and I'm not sure that I've read the issue of MTU before. I've read all the issues of X-Men multiple times, but it's actually been a few years, so there were a few things (particularly in #125) that I'd forgotten.
X-Men #123-124 is the Arcade two-parter. Great elements here are the action sequences, a classic villain facing the X-Men for the first time, Colossus's short-lived brainwashed turn as the Proletarian, and the return albeit in a small role of Amanda Sefton. Colossus's susceptibility to brainwashing are a result of his homesickness, and it's the culmination of the subplot of Piotr off his game. The cons are that it doesn't make sense that Arcade would release the X-Men just for sort of winning his game when he has a contract to kill them, that I don't know why Black Tom and Juggernaut hired Arcade to kill the X-Men, and the ongoing plotholes from Claremont and Byrne keeping the team separated from Jean and others. Scott tells his date Colleen Wing that he's been trying but failing to get in contact with Jean's family. You'd think he'd be more persistent since they just live upstate. But the implication is that it's for a death notification, so Colleen knows Jean is presumed dead by the X-Men. Except Misty Knight saw Jean after her supposed death date, and Colleen and Misty are business partners. Don't these folks ever talk?
A couple of things seem No-Prize worthy, but have explanations. First, Arcade seems to know that Storm suffers from claustrophobia. But of course, Arcade was hired by Black Tom & Juggs, and they were present for Storm's Cassidy Keep freakout. Also, robot Col Alexei Vashin of the KGB appears before the real Vashin has ever appeared. I'm guessing Arcade has info on intelligence agencies and decided it would be good for the brainwashing to model the robot after a real KGB official.
Visually a nice highlight of the story is Nightcrawler using his power to disappear into shadows. That power seemed later to fall rapidly out of use.
The MTU story is mostly forgettable. It features cameos by Arcade and Ms. Locke, but the main villain is underwhelming. The story was actually published months after its placement here, so the placement is probably because this had to come after the Arcade story but was better not forced into some hard to find space amidst the Proteus and Hellfire Club arcs.
X-Men Annual #3 was the first non-reprint X-Men Annual. This is the X-Men versus Arkon. The TPB include the inked cover art showing that there were more of warriors on the cover as drawn, but somehow they got wiped out in a color separations/printing error. The story is a bit of a mess because it requires Arkon starting a fight, when if he just talked to the X-Men he could've gotten their cooperation and ended the story in like 4 pages. Although Claremont's wrote the story, for some reason the script feels like it's not the regular writer for teh series. As great as George Perez is, his renditions of the characters are not as vibrant as Byrne's.
Then again, Byrne's renditions are like the platonic ideals of all these characters. His Phoenix, his Nightcrawler, his Colossus, everytime he has Cyclops and Wolverine face: they're all brilliant during the four-part Proteus arc. I left Storm out, because maybe his version doesn't feel as far ahead of some other versions compared to other members of the team.
Uncanny X-Men #125 is a crucial issue. It's just the warm-up of the Proteus story before the action gets into full swing, but it does a lot of clean-up work. For one, when Beast stumbles upon the X-Men in the mansion, it finally ends the mistaken belief by the two groups that each other is dead. For another, we get the start of the explanation that Scott has been repressing his grief about Jean, making more sense of his oddly muted reaction. But most importantly, we get some clarity to the story of Phoenix/Jean. After saving the whole universe, Jean's has been surprisingly less effective against less fantastic threats. After first theorizing that her actions in the Shi'ar Empire had drained her, Moira's testing on Muir Island later reveal that Jean is unconsciously applying psychic circuit breakers to her powers. Also, in a couple of panels of Professor Xavier's musing on Lilandra's world, we get a clearer explanation of the M'Kraan Crystal then we did in the original story.
UXM #125 also really starts planting seeds for the Dark Phoenix Saga. Jason Wyngarde (still not explicitly revealed as Mastermind) reappears, and it's revealed that he's posed as various people on Jean's journeys to get into her head. We get hints that he's know her from her early days as a hero, he creates an illusion of the first appearance of the classic Black Queen look, and Jean starts having a time-displaced hallucinations.
There's so much I love about the Proteus arc. There's action, pathos, great character moments, reunions, interpersonal conflicts, triumph, and tragedy. Phoenix finally starts using her powers to a greater extent, which is probably a result of the manipulation by Wyngarde weakening those aforementioned psychic circuit breakers. We gets some great reality warping moments from Proteus, who trades the more Silver Age sounding named Mutant X for a better one. As a Cyclops fan and a fan of great fight choreography, I love the sequence in #127 where Cyclops tests the nerve of Wolverine, and to a lesser extent Kurt and Ororo, after Proteus put them through the ringer. It's nice that Havok and Polaris get in on the action, although their roles aren't as big as they could be. We also get some local color in the Outer Hebrides, Edinburgh, and other parts of Scotland. There's also some really tragic backstory for Moira, as we learn that Proteus is her son conceived in a brutal marital rape.
Beyond the emotional elements of the storytelling, we get great suspense and action sequences. Shaking off his recent doubts, Colossus gets to play the key role in defeating Proteus.
I feel like I want to push on to the Dark Phoenix Saga proper, but I might take a brief break to read something else.
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Post by spoon on Mar 2, 2024 20:22:11 GMT -5
I was speaking to a friend who was telling me he picked up DD storyline Born Again and how excited he was to read it. Born Again is to be the next MCU storyline. I didn’t want to crap on his excitement but I have never understood the praise of this storyline.. So much so that I am rereading it because it’s been years and maybe I’ll see it differently. Which makes me wonder is there a storyline, or single issue that got accolades that just didn’t resonate with you? I really, really like Born Again. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of another Miller/Mazzuchelli collaboration, Batman: Year One. I would say the original Galactus Saga doesn't live up to the hype. It sounded much cooler when it was referenced or recapped in other stories than when I finally read it.
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Post by spoon on Mar 2, 2024 20:10:07 GMT -5
Kingdom Come. Batman Beyond. Christian Bale's Batman. O'Neil and Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow run. I heartily agreed about Kingdom Come and Bale's Batman. The hype about KC really mystifies me. It's like elevating telling over showing. We get scripting saying that it's big and important and serious, but the storytelling doesn't conveys much interesting. I've only scenes a few episodes of Batman Beyond, but I enjoyed them. I like GL/GA, but paradoxically I could see why people would expect more. I feel like it could be dependent on how a person is feeling when they read it and what they're expecting. For instance, a big part of it is dealing with social issues, but some of the issues feel more superficial/broad than they could be.
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Post by spoon on Mar 2, 2024 19:18:36 GMT -5
I bought a used copy of the Superman: Exile TPB. I finished reading Byrne's Superman run a month or two back, so I thought it would be interesting to read some of the stuff that came out shortly after. I've only read one or maybe two of the issues reprinted in this TPB.
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Post by spoon on Mar 2, 2024 18:52:12 GMT -5
One thing I forgot to mention in my X-Men posts is that in comics I didn't read off the shelf, I often don't realize how contemporary the culture references in the script were at the time. Like in Hulk Annual #7, the disguise Master Mold is jokingly called Grizzly Adams. I looked it up and found out that the Grizzly Adams TV series was actually on the air when that issue would've been published.
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