Welcome to Nuclear Winter! Because they're Children of the Atom, right?
Audience: Why not just use "X-Mas Time?"
Because this is going through January and that's not seasonally appropriate! Ahem, the X-Men. What can be said, that hasn't already? This week is really only concerned with the stretch from the start of the "All-New, All-Different" era, up to issue 200. This is, admittedly, an era before my time. I only have scattered issues here and there that I picked up because I'd heard about them second-hand, or I thought the cover looked cool. The fight at Forge's tower against the Dire Wraiths. The issue where Logan and Kurt let Colossus get in a bar fight with the Juggernaut because they're kinda ticked how he broke Kitty's heart. The X-Men trying to rescue Arcade from Dr. Doom.
But it's the stretch that made the legend. Made Chris Claremont and John Byrne huge names. Made the X-Men a big deal in the superhero comic biz for years and years. Oft-imitated, perhaps only occasionally duplicated. I mean, the number of homages to the Days of Future Past cover of Wolverine and Kitty Pryde spotlighted in front of the big wanted poster alone could fill an encyclopedia.
Which makes it a hard, after decades of creative teams following in the footsteps, to see what made it such a hit. The things the creative teams did then, that seemed so vibrant and different, have been done over and over again in the years since.
Marvel's superhero output had always been marked by a certain amount of melodrama. Characters arguing, bickering, being stubborn or neurotic. Pining after a teammate who loved a different teammate. Peter Parker bemoaning his difficulty in paying bills, Sue Storm being frustrated with Reed Richards, Hawkeye pissing off all his teammates on the Avengers (or the Human Torch pranking The Thing). It feels like the Uncanny X-Men creative teams simply ramped it up a bit, but brought a flair and style all their own to it. Claremont's purple prose, Cockrum's unique designs for some of the characters (I don't know if that story about Nightcrawler and, I think Colossus, being Cockrum's ideas for Legion of Superheroes characters that got rejected is true, but it's a nice story).
I think part of it was the sense of real, noticeable changes, big and small. Not simply characters leaving the roster like Sunfire, or even dying like Thunderbird. Wolverine being more than just an irritant like Hawkeye or the Human Torch, but someone his teammates are actively nervous to be around. When Angel rejoins the team, he outright asks Xavier if he thinks having Wolverine around is a good idea, because the guy seems like a threat to everyone. But slowly, more in some characters than others, the opinion turns. Logan gets more under control, lets the others in a bit more.
Cyclops leaves after Jean's death, meets someone else, eventually returns. While he's gone Storm takes over as field leader, grows in confidence, but by the time the team is venturing to Japan for Logan's wedding, she feels she's losing control of her powers. Then she loses them entirely and has to adjust to that. Rogue starts out as an enemy, then joins the team. Kitty starts as a student, then makes it onto the main roster, rather than sticking with the New Mutants. OK, some of the changes are more organic than others, likely owing to Claremont's preferences for certain characters, but it feels like there's a lot up in the air. Anything could happen.
A lot of what makes the book sing is the artists. Like I said, most of the new characters have strong, distinctive costumes or looks that help them stick in the memory even when they're in civilian clothes. And the artists are good at giving everyone their own style. It's not a case of, "Warren's the white guy in a suit and tie with blonde hair, Bobby's the white guy in suit and tie with brown hair. No, no, that's Hank. He's the white guy in suit and tie with brown hair, plus big hands and feet!" Wolverine doesn't dress like Nightcrawler, neither of them dresses like Cyclops.
A steady stream of good artists, with strong styles, well-suited for stories filled with fighting and emoting. Cockrum, Byrne, and later on, Paul Smith and early John Romita Jr. Barry Windsor-Smith's drawing scattered issues among all that. Each artist has their own style, but, again, the designs are distinctive enough that it remains easy to tell the characters apart.
The team grew over the course of this stretch, probably marked most notably by their periodic run-ins with Magneto. Mags kicked their butts the first time around, and they didn't do much better the next time. But they gradually learn to work together more successfully. Wolverine got slightly less prone to trying to pick a fight with a guy who controls metal. Xavier regained use of his legs during Secret Wars, Cyclops was back on the roster, Shadowcat and Rogue seemed to be fitting in, things were looking good.
Then issue 200 came along and upended a lot of things, and it was a long way downhill for the merry mutants. But we'll look at that next week.
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