Tuesday 5 March 2013

Uncanny X-Men #243/X-Factor #39: Postferno

But! There's two issues of Inferno left to cover. Uncanny X-Men #243 and X-Factor #39.

The X-Men and X-Factor met up during the crossover and formed a single team. That's worth talking about, right? The way Wolverine and Jean interact, I've got to be able to wring a few words out of that. The stuff that goes on between Polaris/Malice and Havok, where she claims to have merged into one being, and Havok is wondering what on Earth is wrong with him and why do women he is into keep turning evil.

And then there's Mr Sinister, and his raid on the school (making it, what, the second complete destruction of the school? I'm surprised it's so few, surely I'm forgetting some.) I could talk about how Sinister turns out to be responsible for Scott's "coma", and that's why Scott has never learnt to control his power, because it would involve accepting Sinister. He's been manipulated by Sinister for just as long as Jean! And yet, Sinister's dialogue here really does point toward him being a child (he calls Summers a "sissy"), as apparently was originally planned (Sinister is a child's idea of what a supervillain might look like... the art here in #39 makes it look like an actual face, with frown lines, rather than the mask it previously seemed like).

And certainly I could extract a few sentences about the final few pages, where Scott Summers lets rip with full intensity, reducing Sinister to a skeleton in a page mostly coloured in red, one of the best single panels lately. And then how on that last page the teams unceremoniously split again without exchanging contact details or discussing what they should do now they know everyone is alive and cool; because that would undermine the logic of both series.

But I've got people coming round to play Bridge at 1pm and I'm still not dressed. So, you'll forgive me, this once.

1 comment:

  1. I'm surprised it's so few, surely I'm forgetting some.

    I think that's about it, at this point, at least. It'll get blown up/destroyed a lot more from the 90s on.

    the art here in #39 makes it look like an actual face, with frown lines, rather than the mask it previously seemed like

    Huh. You're right, of course, but, probably because I read his pre-"Inferno" appearances well after his more pervasive 90s appearances, I never assumed it ever was a mask, and was more akin to Colossus' "organic steel" skin or something.

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