Through the '90s, I only bought X-Men comics sporadically. This does mean I mostly missed the whole Onslaught era, so, not entirely a bad outcome. I got back into the X-Men because of Wizard Magazine, of all things. They did a special issue just about the hot new creative teams that were going to shake up the X-Books. Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly were going to take over New X-Men, while Joe Casey and Ian Churchill got Uncanny X-Men. At the time, I wouldn't have known a single one of them from a hole in the ground, but Uncanny was going to have Nightcrawler in the book, while New was going to prominently feature Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Emma Frost. Gee, three characters I give fewer than zero fucks about. Also, Quietly made Xavier's head looked like a peeled potato, which is funny, but was not aesthetically appealing to early-2000s Calvin. Or mid-2020s Calvin, for that matter.
Uncanny it was, then.
I know Casey has said he wasn't really inspired for the project, or didn't have a strong idea, something like that. He took it because, basically, you only get offered a major title like Uncanny X-Men every so often. I think that's a harsh assessment, because you can see the outlines of some of the ideas Casey would go on to explore in his WildCATS work, but it's certainly true Morrison and Quietly were the ones who ultimately set the tone for the line. Having Xavier and the school be openly for mutants, greatly increasing the number of students at the school, the expansion of mutant culture.
Casey focused more on the new economic power of mutants, how they could use it, and how others attempted to exploit it. Archangel using his company to speak at a big European summit, or learning that his company had invested in a brothel specializing in mutant sex workers. Chamber being used by a Britney Spears analogue looking to boost her career from the notoriety of dating a mutant. The last story of Casey's run involved the Vanisher, of all people, trying to become a Mista Big by dealing Mutant Growth Hormone to people looking for the rush of having mutant powers. Considering he got outflanked by Warren Worthington, who is nobody's idea of a savvy businessman, that was never likely to end well. But it did speak to an idea where conflicts between mutants might start being fought with money rather than powers.
The cast Casey assembled was an interesting mix of characters from different eras and socio-economic viewpoints. Two Original Five members in Archangel and Iceman, two All-New, All Different in Nightcrawler and Wolverine, one Gen X alum in Chamber, and then Stacy X as a new character. Chamber and Stacy both had experience with people wanting to use their mutant identity to enrich themselves, although Stacy was positioned as having more control or agency over her life. Quite possibly an unrealistic view, but what we have to go on is she and the other women were friends who seemed to enjoy their lives. Wolverine of course has a lot of experience with people wanting to exploit his abilities, and Nightcrawler was a top act in the circus.
Of course, each of them also learned there were limits to how much leeway the lucrative nature of their gifts bought them. Chamber was tossed aside once he wasn't profitable. Nightcrawler was hunted by a mob once they figured out he wasn't wearing make-up. Logan has an extensive history of being mindwiped and experimented on when he's not being an obedient killer. The X-Ranch was burned down by insane religious bigots once it got too big to remain secret. Once their power becomes a possible threat or challenge, it had to be curtailed, which was only happening more frequently as mutants grew in number and status.
The book went through a lot of artists, many of them with wildly different styles, sometimes in the same story arc. Going from Ian Churchill to Tom Raney might not be too big a shift, but from Raney to Ashley Wood, then over to Ron Garney, certainly is. Wood's stuff is nearly incomprehensible, frankly. I can't tell what the fuck is going on in those issues.
The last three issues of the "X-Corps" story go Garney-Sean Phillips-Aaron Lopresti, without the tone of the book really shifting much. I think Phillips was who Casey really wanted, although it's hard to see his art fitting the more action-packed stories, but Marvel kept giving him more conventional superhero artists. Which I didn't mind, but possibly didn't help with what Casey was going for. Phillips drew the story with the Vanisher, which was rather grounded. Stacy using her powers to get Vanisher off the board for a couple of weeks so Archangel can efficiently buy out Vanisher's guys. There looks like there's going to be a fight briefly, but it's handled off-panel. Perfunctory. The Vanisher can't accept he's not ready to play in this new world.
But I'm not sure the X-Men, as presented by Casey, have entirely adjusted either. There's a hypocrisy where some of them - Archangel and Iceman mostly, the two upper or middle class WASPs - judge Stacy for continuing to hire out her powers to people looking for pleasure or release. The notion Stacy might not be willing to subsist on Xavier or Worthington's lagresse apparently not registering with them. However, they are perfectly fine with her using to seduce Vanisher and keep him in a doped-up euphoric haze for two weeks so Archangel can make his power play. Logan, Iceman, and Nightcrawler all hassled Chamber about dating the pop star. Not so much because they seem concerned for him, but they don't like him letting himself be used like an accessory. I mean, they're right that's what was happening, but it should still be Chamber's call. They're still pretty limited in their view of what's "acceptable".
2 comments:
For reasons probably to do with X-Men comics not being reprinted in the UK, and comic shops being rare when I was growing up, I never had much of a connection with Marvel's Merry Mutants either, but in my case it was Grant Morrison that piqued my interest, and I read the whole of their run, plus all of the Allred/Milligan X-Force/X-Statix. As soon as both of those finished, I never went back, aside from stuff I was asked to review for Silver Bullet.
I was always more Spider-Man inclined than X-Men, but they were probably second after him among my favorites. It's just the line bloated so much eventually, and I was only buying comics on certain occasions, it was hard to get anywhere.
Bailing out when Morrison was done was probably the wise decision. I, being an idiot, kept buying Uncanny X-Men thru the Austen run and on into Claremont's second (third?) return. I won't be covering either of those, since none of those comics survived the purges.
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