Uncanny X-Men #281: Telepath Fight

Uncanny X-Men #281 is the first "core" post-Claremont book we're looking at.  In X-Force and X-Factor we have seen very different takes on what you can do in an X-book - grim mercenary fantasies and powered detectivey stuff.  This is the first time we see what someone else (in this case Whilce Portacio scripted by John Byrne and Jim Lee, apparently, although who knows what relation that bears to who did what) will do in Claremont's sandbox.

And it definitely his sandbox: rather than introduce anything new, it's business as usual, as we get the Hellfire Club, Sentinels, Emma Frost and the Hellions, the Reavers and Senator Kelly.  It's practically a roll-call, and as such very reassuring - the X-Men are back as they were in the early 1980s, complete with mutants conspiring to build and set giant robots on other mutants for no clearly defined reason.

The element that wasn't present there, of course, is Jean Grey, what with her dying in 1980, before Emma was anything more than a cardboard cutout.  That Jean/Emma dynamic starts to come alive here, for a moment.  Until Jean Grey gets killed off in the last few pages.  Well, that didn't last long, did it?  Ironic that Claremont wanted to keep her dead and then the moment he leaves the book, they kill her off again.

Special shout-out to the names of some of the Hellions to die in this issue.  "Beef" and "Bevatron".  You don't get names like those any more.  Thank god.  These characters were both introduced over in New Warriors, which apparently exists now but I'm not going to cover...

Classic X-Men #34: "Power Games"

Classic X-Men #34's backup is a short interlude with Emma Frost and a n00b servant at the Hellfire Club, where Emma explains why she is not a sexist character. She may as well be talking directly at the reader.

I tend to agree with the case for the defence. Frost is a fantastic, complex, well-drawn character. How she chooses to dress and behave, and the contradiction between the tools she has learned to use and her sincere desire to teach is a vital part of that. That's the point of her, after all.

Which is not to say that what Frost says here isn't bullshit. Again, that's fine: it's exactly the sort of nonsense a character like that would say.

"There's no such thing as sexism, unless you give them power."

Look, it works for you, Miss Frost, that's fine. But you are a upper-class white woman with mind control powers. Check. Your. Privilege. If you can use sexuality as a weapon, to get ahead in a sexist world, fine. But it has its limits, as Rocket finds out in Sucker Punch (another thing that people who weren't paying attention wrongly think is sexist). I think that's a good examination of the sort of attitude spouted here by Frost. Valtyr writes of it very well:

Babydoll is dancing to distract men, and the other women are stealing items from men undercover of it, and this is terribly fucking dangerous. Sexuality is the only weapon that has been left to them, and it's a dangerous weapon to use because the second the men realise it's being used, it's over. When the music fails and the dance stops, the man notices what's happening; it's over. The music starts again, but it's too late. A woman dies. Again, later, a man is surrounded by all these beautiful women in scanty clothes; their sexuality can't save them, it's a weapon they're allowed. Women die. Babydoll can dance; Blue's got a gun.

The unnamed new hire realises this too. She knows the only way for someone like her to survive the Hellfire Club is to quit. So she will. While Emma continues living in the spaces that men allow her, even though she could do so much more.

Classic X-Men #7: Shaw and Frost

It's not always obvious what Classic X-Men's back-up strips are trying to do. Some of them provide characer moments that fill in gaps (we've had the lovely Scott/Jean silent backup in #6, and Thunderbird's funeral in #3). This one seems to be more for the continuity wonks, as it provides some backstory for how Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost took charge of the Hellfire Club; and how Michael Rossi came to be alive to turn up in New Mutants.

But that's not all that's going on. In the main books being published in 1987, the X-Men are on the verge of an alliance with the Hellfire Club, and therefore Shaw and Frost's reputations need to be repaired. This story shows therefore how they were taken for mugs by the original Black King Ned Buckman, who is the real evil mastermind behind using the Sentinels to kill all mutants. Shaw and Frost had merely wanted the Sentinels to give them a good going over, or something, in some odd scheme to identify the X-Factor.

Shaw and Frost are betrayed by Buckman, and use that as the excuse they need to assassinate him and his cronies, and install themselves as the new Lords Cardinal.

I'm not sure this ultimately works. They're still too closely associated with the Sentinel program after this is supposed to be set for it to be blamed entirely on Buckman. But at least it's going in the right direction.

New Mutants #38-#40: And They Woke Up And It Was All Real

New Mutants #38-#40 deals with the aftermath of Secret Wars II. The New Mutants were resurrected, but as soulless automatons, talking but not caring. Only Dani seems a bit more active, crying, and explaining what happened to Brightwind for us. Thor appears to her in a vision with a message of hope. As a frog. (Never mind Loki being a girl or a kid, Thor was a frog! Blame Walt Simonson.)

Magneto, now going by the name "Michael Xavier", Charles' cousin, isn't able to do much about this, and, after much consideration, takes Emma Frost up on her offer of taking the students off his hands. He closes down the school, with only Dani and Warlock refusing to leave. The X-Men are still in San Francisco, otherwise they'd surely put a stop to this.

I think we're supposed to reckon Emma is causing all this, especially once Empath is found lurking around the school grounds, using his powers to forcibly rpslash Sharon and Tom. At the Massachusetts Academy, we find out it is instead real damage from the Beyonder, as Empath simply can't work on them, and Emma fixes the kids at least part of the way.

Meanwhile, Magneto is wondering whether he did the right thing, Dani goes to visits her parents, and then Sharon and Tom turn up, almost dead, reporting what Empath did to them. Magneto decides that he'd been emotionally manipulated too, and sets off to rescue the kids.

Emma sees this coming, and via her local police force summons the Avengers, here consisting of Captain America, Wasp, Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Hercules, Namor and Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), and tells them the mutant terrorist Magneto is planning on abducting some of her students. In doing so, she sort of gives herself away to the Avengers, as they realise that the only reason Magneto might be interested in them is if they are mutants. Anyway, Avengers and Magneto fight, but the New Mutants - who have been partly fixed by Emma, show loyalty to Magneto and defend him. The Avengers are at least temporarily persuaded of his reform, and allow him to leave with the students. As does Frost - she knows she can't hold them against their will, and gets some brownie points for next round by not trying.

The story has a detached mood matching its subject material, and it's not immediately obvious what is happening or is motivating any of the characters. I'm not entirely convinced by the ending: but I guess Emma can't be as much as a hardass as we'd been led to believe.

New Mutants #15-#17: Chasing Demons

New Mutants #15 starts the day after Uncanny X-Men #180. Kitty is missing. So are the X-Men. Illyana is worried enough that she sends an astral projection to go check on Kitty, and unfortunately finds her a captive of Emma Frost, whose illusions are fooling Doug into thinking nothing's wrong.

Kitty and Frost notice the psychic form, and Illyana cries out in pain. The New Mutants - who've been left behind in the mansion, go see what's up, engage in a spot of demon-hunting (the spell backfired a bit), and then sit down and have a Serious Conversation with Illyana.

Illyana 'fesses up about the sorcery, and tells them about Kitty. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers have also been captured by the Beyonder and forced to participate in his miniseries, so that's not much use, and they are reluctantly forced to catch the bus to MA. On the bus, Rahne is freaking out about Magik, as might be expected, and someone - Sam - finally tries talking to her about theology, rather than just passively watch her denounce herself as the work of Satan.

Illyana dons Kitty's old New Mutants uniform, and they start the rescue attempt. The entrance to the Massachusetts Academy is impressive, being from the direction of below, with the help of Magma.

They roam around the school at will, seeking out Kitty and Emma, and eventually being confronted by a team of mutants at the Academy: consisting of Catseye, Empath, Jetstream, Roulette, Tarot and Thunderbird (who seems to be the first Thunderbird's brother) - a sort of dark mirror of the New Mutants called the Hellions (groan). They fail to escape, and wind up in a well-appointed school jail.

Well, most of them, anyway. Illyana has broken out the soulsword and teleporting, and has managed to get herself and Dani to Limbo. S'ym proves to be properly loyal, and rescues them, allowing them time to regroup. After a brief detour to a 1985 in which the entire New Mutants team are Hellions, they arrive a week after #16. The Hellions aren't thrilled about the management either, and propose a duel for the New Mutants' freedom. Just as this seems to be working out for them (the match is Cannonball vs. Jetstream, which if nothing else is sure to produce a lot of collateral damage), Frost and Shaw arrive. Thanks to continued youthful rebellion on the part of the Hellions, the New Mutants are able to get away.

The Hellions are what this title really needed - an enemy of equal stature, and that provides everyone something interesting to do during a fight scene. The same reason, I suppose, that the Brotherhood was created, back in the day. With Magik joining the team (assuming that she stays permanently) they become slightly more powerful; and finally we are done with the Kitty/X-Babies feud.

Uncanny X-Men #151-#152: Loss of Pryde

Uncanny X-Men #151-#152 is another momentous little story arc, setting up the Hellfire Club, Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw as recurring villains.

Emma's evil plan is: persuade Kitty's parents to withdraw her from the Xavier School and send her to the Massachusetts Academy instead, and then hope that Storm drives her there. This works, and she body-swaps with Storm, drives back to the X-Men, finds that Shaw is already attacking them with Sentinel-derived technology, defeats them. Storm manages to escape from her cell, persuades Kitty of her identity, drives back, liberates the X-Men, and leads them to victory against the Hellfire Club.

Where this body-swapping gun came from is never explained. Such a technology would be very scary: Whedon's Dollhouse begins to explore the possibilities. X-Men again picks up an idea, uses it, and then discards it just as easily without considering the deeper implications.

It came as a surprise to Storm that Frost is still alive, which implies that the X-Men have not been watching the Hellfire Club too closely. Xavier ought surely to have known, if he'd been monitoring them. And the plot only works because he's had a sudden case of ethics - the old Professor X would have short-circuited this by just changing Kitty's parents' minds.

X-Men #129-#131: Hello, Goodbye

There are farewells at the start of X-Men #129, as we leave Alex, Lorna, Jamie, Moira and now Sean on Muir Island, and the X-Men return to Westchester.

I'd written that last bit on the post about the Arcade arc, having forgotten that we get some helloes so soon, too. Xavier has arrived back from the Shi'ar Empire, having been completely spooked when he looked into a record of Jean and the crystal. He is training the X-Men hard, and bizarrely thinks that giving Wolverine "demerits" is a good way to win him over. That's all stopped by the appearance of two new mutants on Cerebro: one in New York and one in Chicago.

Jean, by the way, keeps getting these "time-slips", where she sees herself in the past, with Jason Wyngarde. He's manipulating this for the sinister purpsoes of the Hellfire Club, also consisting of Sebastian Shaw and a White Queen. He plans to unlock Jean's dark side, and so is messing with her head. Jean should probably have mentioned this to Scott, or Xavier, or someone, especially when she finds out that there's a Jason Wyngarde who is a member of the Hellfire Club who just tried to capture them. But this era of the comic is full of people who really should have told other characters things. They know about the blips because they had a spy (Warhawk) plant bugs, so we finally find out what that was about. What Xavier really needs is someone who could have prevented this or at least warned him - maybe his own spy inside the Hellfire Club?

We meet young Katherine Pryde (13 going on 14), who manages to save the X-Men from Emma Frost the day she found out she was a mutant with "phasing" power. To put it in her words (from Astonishing #2)

The first time I ever met the X-Men, the first day...they were ambushed. And captured. And caged. By you. I learned more about good and evil in that one day than I ever have before or since. I was thirteen.

So, yes, that went well. Dazzler helps too, too. Yes, it's her debut as well. Phoenix finishes her off, natch.

Finally we return to Kitty's parents. They're a bit upset at what's happen so it gets fixed by a mindwipe. But Phoenix beats Xavier to the punch here. Oh dear. Where are you going to stop?

Now, let's talk a bit about Claremont's source material for this. The well-documented influence is of course a 1966 episode of the ITV television programme The Avengers (starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg), named "A Touch of Brimstone", which caused quite a storm. That too, featured a Hellfire Club, and a Wyngarde (Peter) trying to make a Queen of a female protagonist (Emma Peel, who we can assume Ms. Frost is named after). That Hellfire Club is less in it for global domination, though, and more for the chaotic neutral mischief. What's less obvious is the possible influence of a slightly later episode of the show, called "Escape in Time", which features people made to believe they have travelled in time, for nefarious purposes. I wonder if they had to pay Thames Television off when they did X-Men: First Class?