186 Reasons Chris Claremont is Awesome #3: Charles Xavier’s Brand New Legs

So there was this one time that Professor X turned into a giant space bug and kind of died.  Funny thing, really.

Though largely an easily-defeated menace today, once upon a time, the Brood royally jacked the X-Men up, even infecting each one of them with a Queen embryo that would hatch and transform its host into a Brood, killing them in the process.  The thing even hatched in both Wolverine and Storm, but other factors (a healing factor and death) prevented the transformation.

Charles Xavier wasn’t so lucky.  His first attempt at detecting the thing knocked him into a catatonic stupor, then its influence led him to recruit the original New Mutants.  Seriously – go look it up.  Finally the X-Men, recently healed from their own infections, made it back to Earth and set out to cure their beloved mentor of his infection.

And they failed.

The Brood embryo hatched and Professor X’s body was irreversibly transformed.  Fortunately, the X-Men managed to put the kibosh on the thing before it overtook his mind, and before you can say “space age technology”, the Starjammers had a new Xavier body cloned and ready to go and transferred his mutant brain over.  The operation was a complete success, and the neat procedure had two neat little benefits.  One, it allowed creators to be able to keep Xavier “ageless” as his new body could be considered any age rather than being stuck with the real-world events of his origin.  The same was done with the recovery of Magneto, but that’s a story for another day.

The second and more in-story benefit was that the new body had a fully working set of legs, as the Starjammers didn’t find it necessary to smash his legs so the two would perfectly match.  So, with the X-Men and New Mutants watching with bated breaths, Professor X emerged from the medical site and shocked everyone by standing up from his chair for the first time since his Silver Age psychic braces had been abandoned because they were really stupid.

And then he screamed out in pain and crumpled into a heap.  Whoops.

You see, when Xavier initially had his legs smashed by Lucifer, he used his psychic powers as a mental painkiller to block the horrific pain.  As he continued over the years, he was always slightly doing such to keep himself sane and preventing his legs from having to be amputated.  With the debut of his new body, he finally was able to stop blocking the pain, but his powerful mind was not exactly registering his new limbs and thus still registered the massive pain when he tried to use them.

Think phantom pains, but in reverse.

So thus, Xavier’s fix was not a simple get-’em-and-go, but forced him into months of physical therapy to train his mind to once again use his legs, much like anyone going through rehab to relearn simple tasks upon recovering from injury.  It was a fantastic and unexpected move for the character, and is just one more reason why Chris Claremont is awesome.

Secret Sundays

from New Mutants #47, written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, drawn by Felix Ruiz

Hoodies.  Keeping identities secret since…well, for a very long time.

eXaminations

We’re right into the SUPER MEGA EVENT now.  Are you excited?  YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED!

This time, we’ll be looking at:

• Astonishing X-Men #49 in which we get more Northstar.
• Avengers vs. X-Men #2 in which the Avengers fight the X-Men.
• New Mutants #41 in which the team gets blinked off to a festival.
• Uncanny X-Force #24 in which the team goes after AoA Iceman.
• Uncanny X-Men #11 in which the Avengers fight the X-Men.
• Vs. #1 (of 6) in which the Avengers fight the X-Men.
• Wolverine and the X-Men #9 in which Wolverine prepares his school for the Avengers fighting the X-Men.
• X-Factor #234 in which the team finds out Madrox is alive.
• X-Men #27 in which Jubilee makes a decision.
• X-Men Legacy #265 in which Weapon Omega has issues.

Holy crap, that’s a lot.  Anyway, the fun begins after the break and there will be SPOILERS.

eXaminations: 2/22/12 Part 1

Hello there.  It’s been about a month since I ventured to pick up my new comics (sorry – traffic issues in my hometown) but I made the trip today and picked up what I had missed.  I had thought it wouldn’t be too bad, since it’s only been a month and I only peruse the X-books.  Unfortunately for my pocket book, Marvel has decided that its titles should be released at a ludicrous bi-monthly pace, so I basically have two issues of every book I buy, with this trend continuing for the foreseeable future.

What that means for you, dear reader, is that I have a lot to cover in this edition of eXaminations.  For order sake, I’m going to be splitting it up into two parts, with nine issues a piece.  For part one, we’ll be looking at:

• Alpha Flight #8 (of 8) in which the limited series wraps up.
• Astonishing X-Men #46 in which Cyclops meetsCountdown: Arena.
• Generation Hope #16 in which the series gets to its penultimate issue.
• New Mutants #37 & 38 in which Magma dates the devil and Cypher explores his death.
• Uncanny X-Force #21 & 22 in which the team gets very British.
• Uncanny X-Men #6 & 7 in which the team get talked down to a lot.

There are, of course, SPOILERS within.  Let’s begin.

Panel of the Month

The featured panel for the month of January comes from New Mutants #36.  I picked this panel because every now and then, I come across a pun, and it’s funnier to me than it probably should be.  (Note:  that funny pun will never be one  that follows many other puns in a short amount of time.)  This panel features the character Blink.  If you’re not familiar with her, I’d describe her, from what I’ve seen, as someone that has the power to play real life Portal, without the use of the guns and is not confined to a particular area.  Anyways, in the issue, Blink and the New Mutants are fighting this rock band possessed by something.  Enjoy the panel.

eXaminations: 1/18/12

I will hand this to Marvel – despite their inability to set any kind of solid schedule for the release of their books (unlike DC, Marvel tends to ship books on the “whenever they’re done” schedule) they have thus far managed to give the X-Men titles some kind of divide where the Wolverine books come out together, as do the Cyclops books.

Well, almost…but 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.  We’ll be checking out:

• Generation Hope #15 in which Sebastian Shaw isn’t exactly welcome on Utopia.
• New Mutants #36 in which the team finishes the Blink mission.
• Uncanny X-Force #20 in which Fantomex goes on trial.
• Uncanny X-Men #5 in which the team notices what’s been going on in other books.

We’ll begin after the jump.  Do be weary of SPOILERS within.

Adventures in order and continuity

My big project that I’ve been spending way more time than I’d care to admit on is making an ultimate reading guide to the X-Men line.  In theory, once complete, I will have a reading order completed that allows an X-Men reader with the time (and resources) to read straight through most of the X-Men story.  I say most because I’m leaving out solo series/minis that move away from the teams (Wolverine, Cable, Gambit, etc).  Trying to fit them in would be an effort of maddening futility (like trying to enjoy Chuck Austen’s X-Men).

Or justifying the merits of Psylocke's identity crisis.

It was quite simple at first – there was only one X-Men title.  The only thing that had to be determined was at what point the annuals should be tossed in to not break up an ongoing storyline with the usually unimportant story.  Upon the launch of New Mutants and further down X-Factor, the titles had to be more carefully organized for better reading.  To do so, I follow three main guidelines in determining the order:

1. Characters – The X-Books have characters showing up in each other’s books all the time.  Finding openings for these appearances are the most helpful aspect in figuring out where stories relate to one another.  For example, if Wolverine pops in to visit the younger team in an issue of New Mutants, then the story would fall between issues that would allow Wolverine an opening to do so.  If an issue of Uncanny ended on a cliffhanger with Wolverine laying bloody before a villain, chances are that he’s not going to get up and visit the junior team back home before coming back for the start of the next issue.
   
2. Events - Characters’ dialogue often references events that happen in other titles and thus shows relation in timescale.  If Cannonball mentions that Magneto has been acting weird since the X-Men returned from a certain mission, then that appearance falls after the issue in which that mission took place.  Crossover events are especially helpful, as they serve as starting/stopping points for different titles.  The Mutant Massacre wrapped up in issues 214, 46 and 11, respectively, of Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and X-Factor.  Fall of the Mutants began in issues 229, 59 and 24.  Thus, even if the exact number of issues don’t match up for each title, all of the issues between the three books must have played out between the two events (in this case, 15 for Uncanny and 13 for both New Mutants and X-Factor).
   
3. Readability – The biggest point of this entire project is that I want the whole experience to be enjoyable (or at least as enjoyable as the story allows).  Thus, I try to switch between the various titles at story breaks.  If a story goes for three issues in Uncanny then wraps, I will then switch over to one of the other titles for its next story before getting back to Uncanny.  This attempts to keep the stories fresh, as you don’t get overloaded with any one title before switching to another, and keeping the stints short prevents forgetting what happened in another title by the time the reader gets back to it.
   

With just three X-Books to deal with, the operation has thus far gone smoothly.  I’m two issues away from kicking off the Mutant Massacre (one issue each of New Mutants and X-Factor) and so far I’ve only had to make one correction (X-Factor has a two-part story that leads directly into the Massacre that I had initially split up).

But there is one issue that breaks two of the rules on its own and there’s simply no good way of getting around it.  And it frustrates the hell out of me.

“On the New Mutants” or “Professor X Phones It In”

Throughout their tenure as students of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, the New Mutants were constantly at odds with the senior team of X-Men, wanting to earn their place but constantly being called X-Babies and pushed aside almost everywhere.  Everyone from Storm to Shadowcat to Wolverine disrespected the kids whenever convenient.

But it wasn’t just the X-Men.  The team’s founder Charles Xavier – the legendary Professor X – had seemingly brought the team together in the same spirit that he had brought the original X-Men together so long ago.  Or that’s what he’d make you think, since he is telepathic and all.  But if one looks closer into the individual recruiting of all the various members of the New Mutants, they’d learn that the team came together through a series of random events rather than through great (or any) effort on the part of Xavier.

• Karma: Discovered by Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four, who sent word to Xavier.  After initially refusing the request to bring her to the school, Xavier is taunted into relenting by Moira MacTaggert.
• Wolfsbane: Chased by religious fanatics led by her own father Reverend Craig, she eventually came across Moira MacTaggert who just happened to be her godmother.  Moira dispersed the crowd and brought Rahne to Xavier.
• Mirage: Mutant abilities discovered by her grandfather, Black Eagle who is killed right after sending word to Xavier to come get her.
• Sunspot: After manifesting his abilities on the soccer field, Xavier actually detects this one.  Sunspot is the only member of the New Mutants that Xavier himself actually finds, yet he still sends Moira to go get the boy.
• Cannonball: Discovered working for Donald Pierce when he attacks Xavier directly.  Invited to join the team after the fight.

And thus the original team of New Mutants were not painstakingly gathered by Charles Xavier in the spirit of the original X-Men.  No, rather they were assembled through luck and circumstance, and mainly through the great effort of Moira MacTaggert.  And as it would later turn out, the decision was made not directly by Xavier, but rather by the Brood Queen embryo planted within his body, hoping to gather other future hosts.  That’s right – Charles Xavier assembled the kids (or had them assembled for him) to eventually turn them into Brood.

But even once cured of his infection and deciding to keep the team going, Charles Xavier kept his half-assed methods going rather than actually giving a damn about his students.  This was no more apparent than when Karma vanished during a fight against Viper and the Silver Samurai.  After a day of looking, Xavier sent the New Mutants away, letting them believe their team leader to be dead.  Knowing that to not be the case, Xavier initially was going to have the X-Men look for her but apparently found something more interesting to do and simply gave up.  His shortsightedness would cause the return of the Shadow King, which would affect everyone associated to the X-Men for quite some time.

But before Xavier would become lost in space and leave the kids under the tutelige of Magneto (good move there) he would bring in four more mutants to the team…sort of.  It was more like four more mutants stumbled into the team and he took credit for the matter.

• Magma: The New Mutants, sent away from the Karma matter, stumbled upon the ancient plot point society of Nova Roma and brought Magma home with them after defeating Selene.
• Magik: The young Illyana Rasputin was kidnapped by Arcade and simply never returned home to Russia.  Eventually she was kidnapped by the demon Belasco, spending half her life in Limbo and ultimately becoming master of the realm.  The New Mutants and their dance teacher Stevie Hunter stumbled upon her sorcery/mutant abilities and she was absorbed into the team.
• Warlock: Crash landed nearby seeking shelter from his father Magus.  The New Mutants welcomed him but Professor Xavier, apparently not regarding aliens as highly as mutants, was far more hesitant before doing so.
• Cypher: Xavier actually knew about this one since he lived so close to the school but was not willing on training a mutant with their abilities unless they could be used for a fight.  Doug was invited to Emma Frost’s Massachusetts Academy and Xavier didn’t really seem to care.  Upon Warlock’s arrival, the New Mutants revealed his power to him and recruited him to speak to the alien.  He just stuck around from that point on.

And thus the team was fully built, through little-to-no effort from Xavier.  In fact, the last mutants he actively used Cerebro to detect – formerly the primary mission of the school and its X-Men – were Shadowcat and Dazzler during the Dark Phoenix Saga.  Past that, Xavier kind of gave it up and let everyone else come to him.

Oh, these forgotten villains

It’s hard to believe for those of us who were raised on the comics boom period of the early 1990′s, but there was a time when Uncanny X-Men was the only X-Men book that Marvel published.  But under the watchful eye of writer Chris Claremont and artists Dave Cockrum and John Byrne, the book became so popular that demand was strong enough to warrant a spin-off.  The X-Men had long since abandoned its original premise of young mutants being students at a “school” for “gifted youngsters”, so the obvious goal was to introduce a young crop of new mutants quite unoriginally dubbed the “New Mutants”.  And thus five new characters – Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Psyche (later Mirage), Sunspot and Karma – came together in the 1982 Marvel Graphic Novel #4, back when there was a difference between comic books and graphic novels.

New Mutants was the first of its kind for Marvel, though DC had long since featured the younger version of the team in Teen Titans, which had launched in 1964, just one year after the original team of X-Men.  But unlike the Titans, the New Mutants weren’t simply the sidekicks of existing heroes (basically younger versions of the franchise characters), but heroes themselves.  And by 1982, Marv Wolfman and George Perez had turned the Titans into their own genre of heroes (and the most popular franchise DC had at the time, hard as that is to believe), so New Mutants really was in a class of its own.

But the premise itself ran into a problem of its own as it searched for an identity of its own.  In its founding, Professor X plainly stated that the New Mutants were not intended to be X-Men, and thus would not be doing the super-hero schtick which he had sent the original kids on immediately, though he still made them wear the skintight outfits.  That raised the question of just what the title would be about.  And the first couple of issues dealt with things like bullying and the dangers of the Danger Room, but those could only go on for so long.

Soon it came time to allow the kids to stumble into villains of their own to fight, which presented an entirely new problem.  To milk off of their association with the bigger franchise (which is the entire point of a spin-off), in theory they would need to deal with some of the rogues gallery of the X-Men.  But to keep the villains remaining a viable threat should they reappear in the main title, they couldn’t exactly lose to these rookie mutants.  After all, the Hellfire Club were just a weak floor and a freak storm away from defeating the X-Men during the Dark Phoenix Saga.  How could you have them lose to these kids?  Would you need to have the kids either lose or be bailed out every storyline?

The answer would be to introduce new villains to be associated with the established ones in the same way the New Mutants were associated to the X-Men.  And with issue #7, did writer Chris Claremont ever throw us a whopper.

New Comic Day hangover

It’s been several weeks since I’ve picked up my new comics, so I’ll be going through the backlog on this, my 20th edition of the New Comic Day hangover.  20?  Really?  Where does the time go?

Anyway, this edition we’ll be looking at…

• Booster Gold #38 in which we get a trip to the past to set up a continuity issue.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #13-14 in which we get a whole lot of Captain Atom.
• New Mutants #19 in which we get more torture.
• Uncanny X-Force #2 in which Wolverine pisses off Angel.
• Uncanny X-Men #530 in which the mutants get the sniffles.
• X-Factor #211 in which we get back to Las Vegas.
• X-Men #5 in which we are still fighting vampires.
• X-Men Legacy #242 in which the rebuilding of San Francisco gets underway.

As a side note, I know I said I would be dropping both Uncanny X-Force and Booster Gold but since my comic shop had already ordered  me copies of these issues before I dropped them from my pull list, I did the decent thing and went ahead and picked them up.  The same will happen with next month’s issues.

Anyway – reviews (with SPOILERS) after the jump.  Let’s get to it!