New Mutants #55: A Very Special Issue

New Mutants #55 is written by Louise Simonson. Yes, we reached Peak Claremont. Well, the first stage of Peak Claremont. Subsequent supplies of Albertan Claremont stories are being developed and are expected to come on stream in 1988, which will lead to another Peak Claremont period around 1990.

Er, what was I going on about?

Ah, yes, New Mutants #55. First up, the dialogue style is immediately different. Simonson has the characters much closer to saying actual things that people might say, and her New Mutants use language to manipulate, to cajole, to deceive and to flatter; rather than just provide a running commentary on their internal state. So that's good.

Sam and the New Mutants are going to a party hosted by Sam's space thief rock star girlfriend, Lila Cheney. After a suitably lengthy sequence of "oh noes what are we going to wear" (and having been sternly informed by Magneto that they must be back home by one), they end up there. Our Plot comes in the form of some aliens who want to get Cannonball out of the way so they can do an evil scheme the precise details of which I have forgotten already, but probably involve Lila and some thievery.

To do this they give Sam some pills and tell him to take them as they will make him cool. Yes, it's that subtle.

There's a little wrinkle in the denouement, though, as he gets away with pretending to have been drugged, rather than having succumbed to the "drugs will make you interesting" message. That's a bit off-code, surely.

So, in conclusion, not a terrible auspicious first issue, but certainly shows signs of doing things that Claremont wouldn't, in ways he wouldn't, which is certainly what this title needs.

Uncanny X-Men #220: forger

Having brought Havok onto the cast last issue, Uncanny X-Men #220 is instead a Storm solo story, with guest appearances by Wolverine, a holographic Forge, and Naze. Well, I suppose this is because the main "team story", as it were, is currently taking place in Fantastic Four vs the X-Men.

Storm is after her powers back. Her only lead is Forge: she visits his apartment, only to find it abandoned and playing back memories of the first Lifedeath. Yay for the handy plot reminder. It's all a trap set by Naze, though, who also is looking for Forge. Together, the two of them decide to go looking elsewhere...

The story continues into the next issue BUT something else comes up in #221 which I want to dedicate priority to AND this seemed important enough not just make it a "and meanwhile" part. What can it be...?

X-Men vs. Avengers: Magneto Was Right Here, A Moment Ago, I Swear

X-Men vs Avengers is a four-issue limited series written by Roger Stern and pencilled by Marc Silvestri. It is now almost impossible to Google. As the name suggests, the X-Men fight the Avengers, but while that might be the headlining attraction, it's not really what the story is about. Instead, it is a belated follow-up to the abandonment of Magneto's trial in Uncanny #200, and like the X-Men vs. the Fantastic Four limited series we covered last post, covers the reaction of the superhero community to his freedom and his association with the X-Men.

X-Men
Storm • Dazzler • Havok • Magneto • Rogue • Wolverine
Avengers
Captain America • Black Knight • Captain Marvel • Dr. Druid • She-Hulk • Thor
Soviet Super-Soldiers
Vanguard • Crimson Commando • Darkstar • Titanium Man • Ursa Major

The U.S. government have set a trap for Magneto, by downing Asteroid M. Magneto finds out about this and immediately goes to recover what he can from it, and destroy the rest, lest it fall into the "wrong hands" (yes, he uses those exact words.) He is intercepted by both the Avengers, seeking to arrest him so he can stand trial again; and a Soviet super-team, who just want to see him dead in revenge for the attack in Varykino in Uncanny #150. There is lots of punching in various ways for the first three issues. The Interesting part of the plot starts with issue #4. The X-Men are placed into protective custody, while Magneto is hiding in Singapore. Magneto is contacted by a local group of mutants who acclaim him as a leader. Among them is a chap named Light who used his power of truth discernment to amass a fortune.

Eventually Magneto surrenders and submits to a trial, but not without consulting Captain America about whether he should use his mass-prejudice-removal device on the entire world (which he cobbled together from bits of Asteroid M - now only practical that Xavier has left the planet). Cap says no, Magneto blasts him with it and is surprised to find his answer still the same. Cap never had been prejudiced against mutants.

This breaks Magneto a bit. It's time for his retrial (again with Haller defending and Jaspers prosecuting. The defence tries a new argument, that Magneto is a state actor in his own right, part of a new nation of mutants, and hence not bound by the Geneva Conventions. As an argument, I'm not sure this works: the Geneva Conventions are part of customary international law, but it's not like this comes up much. But if we're bringing the real world into it, it's far more likely that Magneto would be shipped to Cuba in an orange jumpsuit. The court rejects this argument, and then evidence is taken about Magneto's atrocities. Stern knows his stuff (he was editor for this part of Uncanny's run, after all) and the evidence here presented is a decent hatchet job on Magneto.

The court now retires to consider its verdict. Magneto is worried the ruling is going to go against him, and there will be an uprising by his Singaporean fan club and other such mutants. He'd really rather avoid that. Can the judges be trusted? One item of bizarre random paranoia is his belief that one of the judges is secretly a mutant and wishes to martyr Magneto precisely to start the race war, which mutants will win. Some investigation proves this false: the more prosaic and explanation is that that the judge is a mutophobe. Fortunately, Magneto's got an app for that.

Magneto gets let off: the revised non-bigoted judges accept his argument of lack of jurisdiction. It stops rather abruptly, as he leaves the court building he sees an angry crowd and wonders whether he didn't just make a terrible mistake. The idea that we can go back to business as usual (or rather, to Uncanny X-Men #220) after this is nonsensical, and I was almost expecting an issue #5, with the pogroms beginning.

The miniseries has to fit here because there's nowhere else for it to go: they just got Havok in #219 and then Storm goes off in #220. But it doesn't actually fit here. Apart from the difference in tone (apart from the scary ending, we'd simply not get something as Silver Age as a global anti-prejudice ray in the main series in 1987), we're seeing a different Magneto to the one we've been seing lately. Claremont's is just headmaster of the school and is kept at arms length from their other activities, whereas this one appears to be a fully-fledged member of the X-Men. Claremont's has reformed. This one just thinks he has. This Magneto has all sorts of wacky psychic powers that Magneto hasn't exhibited since Uncanny #4. Claremont's is the master of magnetism. I did this out of order (it's Christmas Eve, if you're wondering), and I can tell you that the Claremon/Simonson Magneto isn't going to put on that helmet for a good long time yet; whereas this Magneto doesn't even give it a second thought.

And yet, although he on paper he is examining a less well-developed Magneto, the ground this is covering is a far more interesting use of the character than the ineffectual sub-Xavier that Claremont/Simonson have him be at this bit in the run. That Magneto is never really tested, not until Inferno, at any rate. What are his limits? This title is willing to ask and answer that, and the answer, though less definite, is more convincing. And there's this idea of Magneto as a revolutionary hero to a mutant underground. Well, that's gonna have legs...

I originally wrote this post more or less as it appears above. Then I happened to look at the last few pages of the collection, that contained behind-the-scenes notes. And suddenly, it clicks into place why the last issue was so different to the others. Tom DeFalco wrote it, not Roger Stern. Stern's original treatment is presented: it presents a much less noble Magneto, still definitely wearing a black hat under that metal helmet. I said "Stern knows his stuff"; he only went and went through every single issue of any comic Magneto has ever been in and documented all crimes, however slight. He poured scorn on the rejuvenation defence, too. But this was not to be. Then, as 16 years later, Marvel would see value in a redeemable Magneto, but this time they caught it before it went to press.

Fantastic Four vs. the X-Men #1-#4

Fantastic Four vs. the X-Men is a four-issue limited series by Claremont and Jon Bogdanove (who has drawn Power Pack for Weezie). As the name suggests, it is is a crossover between Fantastic Four (well, Five, really, as She-Hulk/Jen Walters is a supernumerary member - Franklin tags along too - although since Betsy has replaced Rachel as team teep then there's no creepy first meeting for them.)

Kitty Pryde is stuck. Stuck! Stuck! Stuck! But enough about her art. She's been permanently trapped in phased form. I don't know how she's supposed to eat or drink or breathe whatever, but I assume Marvel Physics takes care of that. She's so far gone that she can't be heard, which is a great idea - she's reduced to telepathic communication with Betsy. But what can they do? Especially when they have no idea how to get in contact with Beast.

Ask Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, obv. Unfortunately, it turns out he's useless. Well, that's what it looks like from the X-Men's point of view. Really, he's having a big crisis of faith having discovered evidence that he had secretly known about the risk posed by cosmic rays prior to the FF's transformational first journey into space. He agrees to go with them to Muir Island to do some tests, but after doing them demurs. Wolverine threatens him blah blah steal the equipment blah blah Doctor Doom blah blah blah offers to help blah blah blah Storm blah blah blah Reed blah blah blah Yancy Street blah blah blah Latveria blah blah blah Reed changes his mind blah blah Doom and Reed's rivalry blah blah blah Kitty is healed.

Yeah, I'm that enthused about it. Part of the problem is that most of the interesting internal dynamics are FF stuff, and I've no context for that. Is the "Did Richards secretly plan this all along?" plot a new idea that Claremont has somehow managed to have after 25 years of FF comics, or is this a hackneyed old thing? There's some mileage to be had about the "Can the Fantastic Four trust the X-Men now that they are working with Magneto?", but the answer is "what the heck, why not", eventually turning into a handshake between Magnus and Reed.

The relationship between the X-Men and Doom is more interesting. To my knowledge they've only met once before, in that Murderworld arc. In this story, Doom spontaneously offers help after Reed rejects them. He says "my reasons [...] are my own", but you don't need to be a Fantastic Four fan to figure out that succeeding where Reed gives up has got to be part of it.

Wood/Coipel's X-Men vol. 4

A Marvel NOW book was teased last week, with the names Wood, Coipel and the codeword 'XX'. This was rather exciting, implying as it did a female-heavy continuation of Wood's enjoyable 8-issue run on X-Men last year.

This was confirmed yesterday, as a book featuring Storm, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers, Psylocke and Jubilee. I said when it was teased that

It needs to justify its existence somehow apart from its gimmick, but I'm sure Wood can do that.

There's always a danger with this sort of thing with looking gimmicky. Happily, there's less risk of this in the X-Men franchise, because it has so many great female characters. Four of the six above constitute the core of the senior staff of the Jean Grey School already (with the unreliable Wolverine and Gambit, the ill Beast and the equally unreliably but for different reasons Iceman), so they've got a perfect reason to be associating. But I don't think Wolverine and the X-Men has taken advantage of this group as characters (admittedly, it only just got Storm, and mostly just ignores Rogue, possibly so she can headline X-Men: Legacy). Jubilee is a vampire right now, so it remains to be seen how she will be brought into the fold. And Psylocke will be juggling this with leading a new Uncanny X-Force team (also featuring Storm).

All of these characters are ones that Claremont either created, co-created, or (in the case of Storm) defined. But he never quite had the team like this: he spread around these characters between the teams. So that looks like it is the distinctiveness this book needed in an increasingly busy X-line: More Claremont than Claremont. Both Jubilee and Kitty fulfilled the role of "the kid", but have had very different paths after that. Psylocke and Rachel are both "the telepath/telekinetic", but are, again, very different. Four of the team have been leaders in their own right lately (Storm in vol. 3, Rogue in Legacy, Psylocke in Uncanny X-Force and Kitty in Wolverine and the X-Men and now in All-New X-Men). The actual punching plot (return of Sublime!) looks quite interesting too.

I have seen the criticism made of this that it should have had a woman writer. Now, certainly there are not enough women writing for the X-Office or comics in general, I won't dispute that. But they are not entirely absent at the moment: Marjorie Liu did 21 issues of X-23 and is now the regular on Astonishing; Kathryn Immonen did Wolverine and Jubilee last year (she's now doing a Sif-led Journey Into Mystery). Elsewhere at Marvel, Kelly Sue DeConnick is writing both the long-awaited Captain Marvel series and is the current writer on Avengers Assemble. In the past comics publishers have been (rightly, in my opinion) criticised for ghettoising women writers by employing them only to write female characters. My view is that women should pitch and write whoever and whatever the hell they like; as should anyone. If that means some of them write mixed titles while a couple of men write female-only titles, then whatever.12 And at a more practical level, what was supposed to happen here at editorial - Wood came along with his pitch for what to do with his return to Adjectiveless - and let's assume that "they're all women!" was part of it (it might not have been - the chances of putting together a woman-only X-Men team are actually not terrible) - was Editorial supposed to say "hey, great idea, let's get someone else to do it?" Obviously, that would be nonsense.

1. Cullen Bunn is doing "Fearless Defenders", another all-woman title; this one with a firm in-story justification, viz. they are Brunnhilde and her Valkyries.

2. There are three female solos right now, too: the excellent Captain Marvel by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Red She-Hulk by Jeff Parker, a continuation of his run on Hulk, and Kathryn Immonen's run on Journey Into Mystery, about which it is too soon to tell. This is up from zero ten months ago.

New Mutants #53-#54: Pleased To Meet You

New Mutants #53-#54 is a two-part story set in one night. The gang have been grounded for weeks, Sunspot and Warlock have run away, and Magneto thinks he has just the idea to cheer them up: a party at the Hellfire Club, which the Hellions have also been invited.

This is not one of Magneto's better plans. And some of his have been real doozies.

It actually turns out surprisingly OK. Everyone gets little character moments. Wolfsbane and Catseye bond; Cannonball and Jetstream develop their rivalry; Magma discovers that Selene might be her ancestor (a distant very-great-grandmother - so I think we're supposed to believe that Selene actually is the Roman moon goddess at this point); Karma goes snooping for intel about her brother and sister; and Moonstar and Thunderbird face off about their respective teams. They end up in a challenge to find out who had sold a dodgy copy of a statue of Selene to a Hellfire club member; the Hellions win, by pointing the New Mutants at the early levels while the Hellions go straight to the boss fight. Sneaky.

Cypher and Roulette end up in bed together (after Cypher got lucky), where they are caught by the other New Mutants. This might possibly warrant adding them to the chart, except that the dialogue seems more pre-coital, so it will remain unadjusted.

And, while they were having all that fun, they've been basically driving off Karma, who has now left the team (again), on a quest to find Leong and Nga. According to the letters page in New Mutants #65, this was to have been a plot in Fallen Angels 2, which never did happen for various reasons...

Classic X-Men #11: Chris and Ororo

Classic X-Men #11's original backup, "Hope", is a story about a writer. That always gets my attention. He's called Phil Halloran, he's late for a deadline, and he thinks everything he writes is garbage. He has facial hair carefully trimmed in a particular way. I don't think I'm being too adventerous in saying this is a representation of Claremont. And not the kind of joking cameo that we have of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but a more sigificiant instrospective sort.

He meets Storm - one of Claremont's favourite characters - at the top of the GPO Tower, where he'd possibly gone to commit suicide. She takes him flying and there is Adventure. The standard format of stories like this is that the guy is left happy and inspired, but this instead has a far more ambiguous ending. It's his life, to do with as he pleases, he says. Unexpectedly honest stuff for an authorial self-insert, if that's what that is.