This time around, I'm turning to an '80s era X-Men team. I don't know what term might be most appropriate to describe them. I think this group existed from around the time of the Mutant Massacre until the Australia years, for what that's worth. I only have a few issues from that brief span, but I'm still kind of fond of that bunch.
At this point, Cyclops is off with his wife and kid*, Xavier's off in space with his honey, magneto's focusing on the New Mutants, and Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat are all on the DL**. Oh, and Storm's still depowered and off with Forge trying to do something, I was unclear on what. It was either her trying to get her powers back, or the two of them trying to stop that Trickster God, or both.
What you've got is Psylocke, in her pre-Asian ninja days. Dazzler, who half the time isn't sure she wants to be there. Rogue's the team's powerhouse, but she tends to be standoffish, with the whole "no touching" issue, and she and Dazzler have issues since Rogue used to try and kill her. Longshot's there, and I've always had a soft spot for him. He's like a more naive version of pre-Frank Miller Daredevil, acrobatic, carefree, and just enjoying the ride. I guess that the life of an X-Man isn't much more difficult than his time with Mojo, so the deadly battles didn't seem like any big deal. Plus, "luck power" seemed to provide vast possibilities, yet wasn't ludicrously powerful. Havok joined up eventually, I think because Malice had taken control of Polaris. In theory, having his power on their side would be useful. In practice, Havok was often unwilling to use his power, because he 'might hurt them - or worse.' Well, that's all very well and good Alex, but your team kind of needs you to do something useful, so howzabout you get to it, eh?
So you have a couple of characters with insecurity issues (Dazzler, Havok), one character that rarely seems to grasp the seriousness of the situation (Longshot), and two characters that are a little too headstrong for their own good (Rogue and Psylocke***). Tactically, you've got a telepath (a veritable prerequisite for X-teams), one close combat brawler, and an acrobatic gnat-type, and a couple of long-range specialists, so it's a decent mix.
I think what sells me on this team, though, is that Wolverine was the team leader. It was a bit of a change of pace from how he'd been in the X-Men up until then. Sure, if he was off on some personal mission with Nightcrawler, he might give orders (ala the fight with the Wendigo), since he knew best about what they were facing, but if Storm, Cyclops, or magneto were around, Logan fell back into his pattern of being a pain-in-the-ass, who questioned orders and took shots at the leader****. He couldn't do that now. And since they were frequently fighting these Marauders, who were apparently a bunch of badasses, he had to really work at trying to get the team to function together, and he had to keep himself under control. The leader can't go off on a berserker rage, or do his "I'm a lone wolf, you all just stay here, I'll finish it" thing. And honestly, I'm not sure how good he was at it. He still seemed more inclined to take point than to give orders, and he didn't have a lot of luck keeping Longshot under control, as evidenced by a fight with the marauders in San Francisco. Scalphunter's drawing a bead on Rogue from the Golden Gate Bridge, but Wolverine gets up there in time. But Longshot tagged along, and pops up in front of Scalphunter's scope, making little jokes. He's just casually balanced on the edge of the bridge, until Scalphunter starts shooting and over the edge he goes. Whoops! And then Logan berates himself for not convincing the kid to be more cautious. It was just a very different take on Wolverine for me, compared to what I'd seen earlier. It put him out of his depth, forced him to exert more control over himself and others, and basically try and mature a little.
No post tomorrow. See you Wednesday!
* As little as I like Cyclops as a character, I've still always had a hard time seeing him bailing on Maddy and Little Cable-To-Be to go run around with newly Not Dead Jean Grey.
** Though Colossus did make a comeback right around the end of this time, while the team was in Dallas trying to track down Storm.
*** There's a two part story where Dazzler leaves the team for awhile, comes across the Juggernaut, tries to fight him alone and fails, then all four of them try and stop him. Except Rogue flies in a tries to punch him down, which just gets her batted into the atmosphere. Psylcoke's chastising her for not working as a team, except then she goes and tries to ram Juggy with a truck, which fails, then tries to psi-blast him through his helmet. You know, the helmet that protects him from Xavier's psychic attacks? So she barely survives. Both of them were just a little too sure they were awesome for their own good.
**** Though he didn't seem to do as much of that to Storm. Maybe her leading with no powers earned her more respect.
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3 comments:
Ah, the Australian era. When they were invisible to all cameras and so on. And Silvestri was doing the art chores for the most part. There was a certain rag-tag charm to this particular incarnation of the X-men.
You know, this run was where I started to sour on the X-Men, I really liked the Massacre storyline, but it left two of my faves off the team (Nightcrawler & Colossus) and while I liked Havok from the old runs, I didn't like his characterization this time around. Also, I never like Silvestri's art.
By the time they hit Inferno, I was in full time WTF-why-am-I-buying-this mode. Of course, comics were only $0.75 back then, so I kept buying it.
sallyp: I've only got one comic from that era, but it involved Colossus having a knockdown fight with a Brood, where a cameraman's freaking out because he's recording the fight, but all his buddies tell him they don't see any big metal guy, just some bug thing. At the time, I had no idea what was up with that. I did like Psylocke's hooded outfit though. That was nice.
jason: I'm a Nightcrawler fan myself. Not so much Colossus, though as a supporting character I like him pretty well. I have to admit, I liked the roster they had before the Massacre took Kurt, Kitty, and Peter off the board. Especially with Magneto on the team, that just seemed so cool, him trying to change his ways.
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