Friday, March 06, 2020

Random Back Issues #21 - Mekanix #4

'Curious like a kat.' I guess the Xavier Institute took a more liberal approach to spelling. Either that or she's taking Conveying "Clever" Spelling Via Inflection 101.

Don't know why this mini-series is titled what it is, but Kitty's studying physics at Chicago University, where she's run afoul of a anti-mutant hate group. They don't even know she's a mutant, they just know she beat the shit out of 7 of their guys after one of them got in her face with his nonsense. I can picture Logan nodding approvingly until he sees Storm glaring at him, then he frowns and shakes his head.

The downside is, to avoid expulsion for beating up bigots, she has to see a shrink. That's not going terribly well, since Kitty's also dealing with her father dying along with all the mutants on Genosha when Grant Morrison unleashed that little surprise.
I think this doctor is about as bad at her job as Leonard Samson. I know when a person tells me something about themselves one time, then throws a pity party for themselves because I didn't immediately divulge all my deepest secrets, it makes me want to trust them.

An explosion at the lab she works in was caused by the hate group, but the FBI, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to treat Kitty as a suspect and ransack her apartment rather than investigate the predominantly white terrorist group. Was this written in 2002 or 2019?

That's another problem, and on top of that, a ship full of Sentinels sailed into the harbor, leaving Kitty and Karma to try and fight one of them off. With a bat and a handgun. Karma admitted she brought her old X-Men uniform when she left the school, just in case. Seems she should have poked around for any guns Bishop or Cable left behind while she was at it.
Kitty goes with the exposed midriff look a lot in this series, which is not a look I'd typically associate with her. I'd say that Rachel Summers' fashion sense had rubbed off on her, but it's probably meant to be Kitty struggling with her sense of self in the wake of so many changes. I think within a few months of this ending, Claremont dragged Kitty into X-Treme X-Men, because of course he did.

[7th longbox, 128th comic. Mekanix #4, by Chris Claremont (writer), Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa (artists), Edgar Tadeo (colorist), Tom Orzechowski (letterer)]

5 comments:

thekelvingreen said...

I'm not sure they ever explained the title. It got folded into X-Treme X-Men when it was collected, which doesn't help.

CalvinPitt said...

Maybe it was part of the whole "burgeoning mutant culture" thing Morrison was pushing. Mutant Spelling! All words end or begin in "X" now! Sorry, I mean "nox". Or is it "now"? This is harder than I thought.

That was kind of a weird time for X-books though. Remember there was that one book, The Brotherhood, they wouldn't say who the author was? Just listed it as "X"? Although I just now thought to look on Grand Comics Database, and it says X was Howard Mackie. Wow, that is a huge letdown. "M. Night Shaymalan's The Village" level bad twist ending.

thekelvingreen said...

Yeah, that was only announced by Marvel in 2018, long after anyone who cared had lost interest. Everyone knew it was Mackie at the tie, but they held on to that secret for seventeen years for no reason. Bizarre.

As such, I imagine the reasoning behind the Mekanix title is going to be revealed at San Diego this year.

CalvinPitt said...

Really? Geez, I had no idea it was Mackie. Never even occurred to me it would be him. I figured it was, I dunno, somebody who mostly did more highbrow stuff, or indie stuff, and they were slumming it to pay the bills. Or Morrison had sold them on the idea they'd get to run wild or something. Ah well, I'm stupid.

thekelvingreen said...

Well, I say "everyone knew" but it was only the people I was following at the time, like Paul O'Brien over at House to Astonish, but I took it that people like him were active in more comic fan circles than I was and knew what they were talking about. So I'm probably exaggerating how many people knew. O'Brien was sure it was Mackie, anyway.