Issue #101 marked the beginning of the Phoenix Saga, the conclusion of the Eric the Red subplot and culmination of a year's worth of stories from Claremont. And yet, the Phoenix Saga was also a stepping stone for bigger and better things. It's a story where the X-Men save the entire universe, an epic, and yet it was handily eclipsed by the Dark Phoenix Saga. It brought back a few classic X-Men villains to face off against the new team, but it also introduced a veritable host of new supporting characters.
This period also marks a transition for the art team. Penciller (and co-creator) Dave Cockrum decided to leave the book, though he returned for a considerable stretch of issues a few years down the line. He handed the reins over to Jack Byrne starting with #108. He unfortunately left right during the climax of the storyline, but Byrne was similar enough to him stylistically that the change isn't exactly jarring, or perhaps even very noticeable (at least to someone whose eye for art is as horrible as mine).
#106 was filled in by Bob Brown (and, incidentally, plotted by Bill Mantlo, due to complicated circumstances that I'll explain later) and #110 by Tony DeZuga, with assists provided by Cockrum.
#101 picks up right where the previous issue left off, with the X-Men on a crash course toward E arth, and Jean Grey nearing death from a fatal dose of radiation.
The X-Men already ravaged Kennedy Airport once, if you'll remember, in issue 97. Now they crash land there and destroy yet another empty jet, then careen away directly into Jamaica Bay. (Remember this for later. This innocuous detail was made enormously important several years later.)
The rest of the X-Men (and Corbeau) make it to the surface, and are then surprised by Jean bursting from the sea in an entirely new uniform and declaring: “I am fire and life incarnate! Now and forever, I am Phoenix!” This scene is also depicted on the cover. She then passes out. The narration makes it explicit that she indeed died, though we don't see it happen. This would also eventually prove to be crucial. Her moniker is entirely appropriate, but it's also clear she doesn't call herself that just because she died and came back to life; there seems to be some sort of significance to it.
And with that, the matter is concluded for now and the issue starts developing a whole new plot line entirely. I'm not quite sure how to feel about this. The previous issue's cliffhanger was perfect as it was, but I can't help but feel that the introduction of the Phoenix could have been paced better somehow. Perhaps she should have done more than announce herself and then faint. Two issues would have been more suited than one and a half.
The aftermath at the hospital is interesting, however.
Wolverine, having developed a bit of a crush on Jean, buys her flowers. This is the first bit of niceness we see from him, the first indication that he's not just a jerkass. When he sees everybody else gathered and waiting for news on Jean, he throws the flowers away. Xavier is clearly weary from the whole ordeal, and also makes a brief reference to the almost non-existent feelings he had for Jean early under Stan Lee. (Xavier also cleared things up for the X-Men by making people forget about the destruction at Kennedy Airport with his powers.)
Scott wonders whether it isn't Jean, not the X-Men, that gives his life meaning. This, I feel, is prescient in certain unfortunate ways: one of the problems with Cyclops's character in (much) later years was that he was probably overly defined by his relationship to her. This line of thinking opened up an entire can of worms over two decades later. When a doctor informs the team that Jean is going to be fine, he leaves the others and breaks down in tears. The scene is quiet and very effectively emotional, and a stark contrast to the amusing melodrama I highlighted from #94. Xavier decides to send Banshee, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Wolverine on an “enforced vacation” to give Jean the time to recover in peace. Since Banshee has by now received the letter sent to him in #99, it is decided that they go to the Cassidy ancestral home in Ireland. A subplot focusing on Sean made a whole lot of sense at this point. Banshee was the oldest character among the new team members, and yet the reader knew next to nothing about him. It was about time that he was developed a bit.
In Cassidy Keep, the X-Men meet the steward Eamon O'Donnell, who's secretly threatened by someone with a grudge for Sean Cassidy. Although Ororo is disturbed by the stark castle environment, the group makes great headway with relaxing and having fun, especially Kurt. However, the X-Men's evening is interrupted when the mystery figure – Sean's cousin “Black Tom” Cassidy – makes his move. He also happens to be a mutant, with the power to fire energy blasts from wood. With him is none other than Juggernaut, who was rescued from the Crimson Cosmos for some guest appearances during the reprint years. (Of course, of the present X-Men, only Banshee knows who he is.)
The next two issues have a lot of great action sequences throughout the castle.
One very notable event here is that Storm suffers a debilitating mental breakdown in the bowels of Cassidy Keep. We find out the reason for this in a flashback telling her origin story: she's a child of of an African princess and an American photojournalist who were killed by a downed French bomber during the Suez crisis. Ororo was traumatized when she was trapped in the debris. She later became a pickpocket in Cairo and eventually took on the position of a deity in Kenya.
Marvel's sliding timescale means that the historical aspect of Storm's past has quietly been retconned away. She couldn't be a child in 1955 if she's still in her thirties in 2010, now could she? In current continuity, the plane crash that killed her parents was the result of an Arab-Israeli conflict.
Due to Storm's helplessness, the X-Men lose the first round and are captured by Black Tom. Nightcrawler is assisted in their rescue by Eamon O'Donnell and Рbelieve it or not Рa group of leprechauns who live in the castle. This is frankly kind of stupid. The leprechauns feel very thrown in and out of place, and they're a horrible clich̩. Did we really need to have leprechauns just because the story is set in Ireland? Kurt cleverly uses his image inducer to piss Juggernaut off by masquerading as Xavier. Ororo gets her moment when a glimpse of the sky empowers her enough to bust everyone loose with a hurricane.
This battle is also the first instance where a mutant's power doesn't work against a close relative; in this case, Tom seems to be immune to Sean's sonic screams. For this reason, the final outcome is decided by a sword duel, which sends Tom flying into the sea from the castle's palisades. Oddly enough, Cain decides to jump in as well to save his newfound friend. (This was a great and very organic solution to the problem that the X-Men shouldn't quite be able to defeat him without Xavier's help.) Both of them survive, of course. In fact, Black Tom's and Cain's team-up started a supervillain bromance that lasted for decades.
Ultimately, we find out that they were backed by Eric the Red. It turns out that Eric has a deadline for dealing with the X-Men: he must do it before Princess Neramani, a figure from Xavier's mysterious dreams, reaches Earth.
Meanwhile, in America: Jean is feeling better and Professor Xavier gets some bad telepathic vibes from Ororo's breakdown in Ireland. He tells Cyclops to head over there, but Scott tells him to go fuck himself (I'm paraphrasing), since he won't leave Jean's side. We also meet Jean's roommate Misty Knight, a minor superhero (she has a bionic arm) and supporting character of the Heroes for Hire. This was just one of those touches that it made it easier to believe our heroes were living in a genuine Marvel Universe.#104 marks the return of Magneto. Appropriately, the cover is an homage to Kirby's cover for #1, with Magneto holding off the X-Men with a force field.
The story starts off with a sailor trying to deny the X-Men, “costumed freaks” a hovercraft they've paid for (while some passersby show fear of Nightcrawler). Being superheroes, they take the craft by force and stuff the sailor's pockets with money. Amusingly, the hovercraft is then promptly blown up.
The X-Men are on their way to Muir Island, Professor MacTaggert's private mutant research center, when they're attacked by Magneto – and soundly trounced, since they've never trained for the possibility of encountering Magneto. It also doesn't help that Wolverine's claws and Colossus's metal armor offer him plenty of material to work with. Oddly enough, Magneto considers Banshee his most dangerous opponent. His solution for dealing with Sean is quite interesting: collating ferrous particles around him to fuse him into an airtight metal coffin. Control of magnetism was always a vague enough power that Magneto could do basically anything, but he's especially versatile under Claremont.
The introduction of Muir Island involves a minor retcon: apparently, Xavier has always been an associate of this facility, but never mentioned it to the X-Men. Cyclops expresses annoyance over this when he and Moira go to the island to look for the team. Considering he was supposed to take over for Xavier on more than one occasion, it does seem strange that he wouldn't have been told about it. But alas, such is the nature of retcons.
Muir Island is also used to attempt to rehabilitate evil mutants and other foes of the X-Men. Resulting from this, it turns out that MacTaggert took care of Magneto when he was turned into a baby by Alpha. Eric the Red simply reversed the process to use him as a pawn. While the status quo was restored rather off-handedly here, the incident wasn't totally forgotten either. It was actually cobbled together with Magneto's long-term character development to have some far-reaching implications.
Jaime Madrox makes a cameo as another inhabitant of Muir Island. This is, I believe, Multiple Man's first appearance in an X-Men-related book since his introduction in a Fantastic Four story. In those days, Claremont was quite skilled at weaving together different elements from different books to create a coherent whole. If not for this minor appearance, Madrox might very well have faded away into limbo permanently. Who can say?Cyclops arrives just in time to evacuate the rest of the team. He's figured out that Magneto was nothing more than a distraction so Eric could strike at the unprotected Professor Xavier. Score one for Magneto.
The story ends with a virtual overload of teases. For one, Wolverine notices that the bug-woman employed by Count Nefaria in X-Men #94-95 – named Dragonfly – has used the commotion on the island to escape. She's had a number of appearances fighting other superheroes, but hasn't come into contact with the X-Men since then. (Remember what I said about Claremont and subplots?) We also gets hints that something called “Mutant X” has gotten loose as well, a whopping 20 issues (!) before the actual Mutant X storyline materialized.Finally, the last page introduces a band of space pirates called the Starjammers and shows Princess Lilandra Neramani arriving on Earth and being attacked by a hostile ship, as well as Eric preparing to attack Xavier while he's meeting Jean and her parents in her apartment. All these threads coming together creates an engaging sense of expectation for the big finale of the Phoenix Saga.
The next issue, #105, starts up a bit too abruptly, with the X-Men already facing off against Eric and his new ally, Firelord, former Herald of Galactus. Apparently, Firelord just happened to be on Earth and was roped into helping out with killing Xavier by deception. Firelord easily overpowers the team, and he and Eric go to hunt down the supposedly defenseless Xavier.
At this point, the reader finally starts finding out more about Princess Lilandra. It turns out she's an avian alien, the general of the star-spanning Shi'ar Empire who led the rebellious faction in a civil war – and lost. A Shi'ar starship was sent to hunt her down on her way to Earth – the Star Trek reference is pretty blatant – and they manage to shoot her down just as she's teleporting down to Xavier.
So now Lilandra interrupts Xavier's dinner with Jean, her parents John and Elaine Grey, and Misty Knight. Moments later, Firelord arrives. Shockingly, it turns out that Jean is more than a match for him with her new Phoenix powers. She's shot past everyone to become the most powerful X-Man. They engage in a dogfight over the city, and also fly past a cameo appearance by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum themselves. (Claremont's wordiness is even lampshaded.) The Phoenix comes out on top.
The rest of the X-Men arrive, but fail to prevent Eric from kidnapping Lilandra and taking her away with a star-gate he'd constructed. It turns out that Eric is Davan Shakari, Shi'ar intelligence agent, and that his mission was to prevent Lilandra from contacting Xavier. The X-Men would seem to have no way of following him and Lilandra, but Jean manages to power up the star-gate and get the team through – right into another galaxy.
#106 marks a strange interruption in the plot. After a few panels set in the aftermath of the X-Men's departure from Earth, we segue into a flashback to a completely unrelated adventure. The reason for this was that Cockrum was busy with a personal project at the time, and so a backup story that had been created for exactly this kind of emergency two years ago (plotted by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Bob Brown) was dusted off, framed so it fit in after issue 105 and sent to the printers. The timing was extremely unfortunate, since this was exactly where the momentum of the Phoenix Saga was really taking off. But Brown had actually died a short while earlier, making this filler issue much more significant (and forgivable) than it would otherwise have been.
The story itself is set in the Danger Room. The rest of the team talk to Cyclops about his unreasonable expectations for them and inability to adapt to the new team. At this point, the original X-Men appear (sans Cyclops, and dressed in their blue-and-yellow uniforms), and pick a fight with their replacements. Battle ensues.
Eventually, it turns out that the Iceman, Beast, Angel and Marvel Girl the new X-Men faced off with were nothing more than psychic projections, created inadvertently by Xavier during a fever dream. To be precise, it was another Xavier, a personification of all his evil desires. The Professor defeats it by creating new representations of the original team, benign ones, to beat him up. This idea, that Xavier has a very potent “dark side”, eventually became very influential to his characterization, and even figured in prominently to the Onslaught storyline in the 90s. This incident creates a bit of a plot hole. The story takes place before the team faced off with Lang's X-Sentinels. That means they fought copycats of the original X-Men twice over a relatively short period of time. In light of that, does it really seem believable that they were so slow to catch on to the fact that their predecessors were fakes the second time around? I don't think so.
Bob Brown's art is a little inconsistent. Some panels look great – there's a close-up of Sean that looks perfectly debonair – while others are marred by slightly ugly detailing. It has kind of an “old time” feel compared to Cockrum's work, at least in certain places.
#106 gets the plot back on track, and what a story it is. It's titled “Where No X-Man Has Gone Before”, and also happens to be Cockrum's last issue as the regular penciller, at least for a few years.
Coming out of the star-gate, the X-Men end up on a strange planet that houses the mysterious and powerful M'Kraan Crystal, right in the middle of the Imperial Guard, an elite group of Shi'ar warriors.
The Imperial Guard were actually based on the DC Comics superhero team called the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion operates in the 30th century and is composed of a large number of superpowered humanoids from all over the galaxy; the Imperial Guard is a more... imperialistic version of this. Nowadays, they're mostly remembered for having an extremely fucked up continuity. There's three distinct versions of them, and some other timelines to muddy the waters further. I mentioned earlier that Cockrum had worked on their book a while, so he came up with the Guard as an homage.
These are the Legion counterparts of the named Guardsmen:
Gladiator – Superboy.
Mentor – Brainiac 5.
Oracle – Saturn Girl.
Hobgoblin – Chameleon Lad.
Tempest – Lightning Lad
Starbolt – Sun Boy
Fang – Timber Wolf.
Astra – Phantom Girl.
There's also recognizable analogues of Ultra Boy, Star Boy, Shadow Lass, Colossal Boy and possibly Shrinking Violet.
The splash page that introduces them all is a masterpiece of design. There's about fifteen guardsmen on it, and each of them looks interesting enough to be an entirely new superhero. Each of them evokes the Legion original, yet looks entirely fresh as well. Cockrum really pulled out all the stops for his final issue. There isn't a single panel that isn't crowded, yet perfectly balanced. Even floating heads in flashbacks look amazing.
Personally, I'm a pretty big fan of the Legion, both for their stories and their... “interesting” history. I dare say they're my second favorite superhero team. If I wasn't doing this massive analysis of the X-Men, I'd be doing it for the Legion of Super-Heroes.
During the free for all battle between the Guard and the X-Men, the reader also gets all the fine details on what's actually going on. Lilandra's brother, Emperor D'Ken, is insane and plans to use the ancient Crystal to gain ultimate power, but fiddling with it could very possibly destroy the entire universe. Lilandra failed to stop him with her civil war, so she headed to Earth to recruit the X-Men to help her. How did she know of them? Well, apparently, she learned of Earth from the Professor's telepathic attack on the Z'Nox in X-Men #65. Also, Xavier is apparently her soul mate or something, so they had a natural telepathic link. This frankly seems more like a rationalization than an explanation.
Shakari was stationed on Earth at the time and was instructed to prevent contact. The only real loose end is why he would possibly have taken up the guise of Eric the Red. It seems awfully random, but the only explanation is that it was a bizarre attempt to mislead the team. In any case, the mystery of Eric the Red ultimately fell quite flat. But since Eric/Shakari basically just disappears from here on out, I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.
The fight itself includes a number of cool scenes, especially on Nightcrawler's part. He weaponizes his image inducer yet again – he shocks a shapeshifter by turning into a giant monster himself – and also performs his first teleportation with a “passenger”, which knocks him unconscious at first. Wolverine demonstrates his regenerative abilities by tanking a solar firestorm, then beats up Fang and steals his costume.
But the X-Men are outnumbered, and the tide begins to turn against them... until the Starjammers arrive to reinforce them. The Starjammers are a group of intergalactic outlaws with their own scores to settle with the oppressive D'Ken. Of course, they also want to save the universe.
Their core group includes:
Raza Bloodknife – a yellow-skinned cyborg.
Ch'od – a giant amphibious reptile.
Hepzibah – part skunkgirl, part catgirl.
Corsair – their leader, who inexplicably seems to be human.
But even with their support, the X-Men don't manage to stop D'Ken in time. The stars align just right and he gets access to the M'Kraan Crystal. This spells some trouble for all of creation. The universe stops existing for a moment, which causes quite a stir back on Earth. Over the end of #107 and the beginning of #108, the Avengers, Fantastic Four and Peter Corbeau on his Starcore space station all take notice of the instabilities, and even President Carter is briefed. This is a nice way of amping up the scale of the story.
A guardian called Jahf exits the “gateway into eternity” that lies inside the Crystal. Wolverine tries to pick a fight and ends up punched into orbit, literally. The others manage to defeat Jahf, through difficulties, only for another guardian, Modt, to take his place and explain that there are countless guardians, each of whom is exponentially stronger than the previous one.
I don't like this aspect of the story at all. The M'Kraan Crystal is an ancient artifact of immense power; a small purple troll seems like a very poor representation of it. Admittedly, Modt – an alien-looking giant – looks more fitting, but the Crystal shouldn't have a face at all. They both only seem to exist only to give the X-Men some eleventh hour opponents to fight.
At this point, Raza gets super-pissed at D'Ken and throws him right into the Crystal. The resulting distortion throws everyone present inside right along D'Ken, into some kind of metaphysical space that bombards them all with their greatest fears. Only Jean is immune to the defense mechanism. She realizes that there's a neutron galaxy locked inside the Crystal that would obliterate the outside universe if it was released. Using the power of the Phoenix, and the life forces of the X-Men, she manages to repair the lattice containing the galaxy. It's an enormous effort that demonstrates the god-like power she now wields.
And with that, the day is saved.
Contact with the Crystal turned D'Ken into a vegetable, so he's no longer fit to rule the Shi'ar. He faded into limbo for a good thirty years, only to make an inexplicable return later on. Lilandra will succeed him, but decides to accompany the X-Men to Earth to spend time with the Professor while the politicians iron out the details. (Turns out leading a rebellion against the throne didn't go over so well.)
It's also revealed that Corsair is Scott's father. Only Jean catches on to this through a telepathic scan, and keeps quiet about it.
The Phoenix Saga takes the X-Men very far from the planet Earth, and also very far from traditional X-Men storylines. It's science fiction on a much bigger scale than we've seen so far in the series. After all, fighting robots in orbit is very different from fighting aliens in another galaxy. It seems quite distant from what the X-Men are supposed to be about, and it's also quite unlike the down to earth handling of mutants that Claremont would go on to popularize. However, the Phoenix Saga by its very existence ensured that these kinds of stories would always be acceptable in the franchise. The Shi'ar – and Lilandra in particular – have been major players in the X-Books since then.
I've heard that the story was born in part due to Cockrum's desire to draw insect-like alien spaceships. (This certainly showcases how much say Claremont gave to his artists in working out plots.) I also wonder whether the then-recent Kree-Skrull War storyline in the Avengers title had any influence on the story.
The Phoenix Saga has its share of flaws, but it's certainly a good story, a very good story. But the All-New, All-Different X-Men were still very much a work in progress. This story pretty much pales in comparison to its sequel, the Dark Phoenix Saga, and a handful of other Claremont classics. For this reason, it isn't much remembered nowadays.
#109 is a character-driven story. It ties up the Phoenix Saga and starts up an entirely new subplot, but the bread and butter of the issue is on the characters relaxing after their travails in space. The issue works very well to cap off the tension of the big cosmic happenings. Claremont understood the importance of giving both the readers and characters a chance to breathe.
So what does the team do with their free time?
Ororo seeks out her garden in the attic and waters her plants in the nude, then joins Moira and Sean for a picnic on the mansion grounds. Peter tries and fails to write a letter to his parents, and also joins the group.
Jeans tells her parents everything about the X-Men, her death and resurrection, and the Phoenix. She wouldn't exactly have had a choice after they witnessed her fight with Firelord. It was either the truth or a mind wipe by Xavier.
Scott mopes over Jean. We also find out that Xavier released Alex and Lorna from Eric's mind control, and they decided to get some alone time at Muir Island. None of this happened on panel. I understand why Claremont wouldn't have wanted to deal with them here – he had enough characters in the mix already – but their involvement in the story really feels pointless now. They were... mistreated.
Kurt goes to see “Star Wars” with a date. It's not made clear, but he's most likely using his image inducer for that. He also has a serious conversation with Scott that shows just how aware he is of his appearance, and why he still doesn't feel sorry for himself. Hell, this is a character-defining moment right here.
What Wolverine does is perhaps the most interesting: he goes hunting. When Ororo is angry with him for killing innocent animals for sport, he explains, in his usual brusque manner, that he doesn't kill them, only sneaks close enough to touch them. This is unexpectedly peaceful for him. While in the forest, he's attacked by an old acquaintance – James Hudson, Weapon Alpha, an agent of the Canadian government who's been sent by Wolverine's former handlers at Department H to take him back (Incidentally, there's something very wrong with seeing covert agents in top secret spy planes wearing maple leafs on their uniforms. No offense, Canada.)
Hudson's power suit gives him an edge over Wolverine. Their fight spills over to the lakeside where Sean, Moira, Ororo and Peter are enjoying themselves. The other X-Men stand up for Wolverine, but Moira is injured in the crossfire. Hudson decides to retreat, but resolves to return later on, and to bring something called “Alpha Flight” with him. Dun dun duuun.
At this point, I should mention that there are rumors that Claremont had been planning on killing off Wolverine. Now he's receiving increased character development and his own storyline. It's not a coincidence that the title's new penciller (and co-plotter) John Byrne is also Canadian.
#110 is another fill-in issue, although this one was prepared in advance and runs in sequence with the others. Seeing Claremont apologize for this in the letter column is somewhat surreal for a modern reader. Nowadays, Marvel wouldn't hesitate to delay a book for months on end instead of bringing in a guest artist, and artists change so often anyway that the change wouldn't be notable.
The art was done by Tony DeZuniga, with assists by Cockrum. It's much rougher than Cockrum's and Byrne's work, but not in a bad sense. The lines are much thicker and sketchier, which looks especially good in close shots.
The issue starts with the first ever X-Men baseball game, a staple of Claremont's. The games were a neat way of showing the team's camaraderie, as well as their powers, since someone would invariably try to cheat with his or her powers. I could never figure out why other X-writers haven't used this as much as Claremont.
The Mansion is infiltrated by Warhawk, a minor supervillain and former SHIELD agent. He manages to turn the Danger Room against the team (this includes a cameo appearance by a new incarnation of the Colosso robot from X-Men #22) and has a duel with Wolverine, but is defeated when the rest of the team is freed.
Unbeknown to the X-Men, Warhawk was the agent of a greater power, and successfully managed to plant a listening device in the building. The character was just a springboard for yet another long-reaching subplot, and it shows – he's a pretty bland villain by himself. And since he only fights with some lame gadgets, he's not much of a threat either. But his actions here had some long-reaching – if minor – consequences.
Over this stretch of issues, the reader really got to know the new cast members a bit more as their personalities were ironed out.
Ororo is majestic and serene, but also very severe when angered. I wonder if her personality was consciously modeled after the weather she controls. Her claustrophobia has remained an important part of her character until now, but to see her composure disintegrate with her first breakdown was an almost shocking reminder of weakness. Even this early on, she's one of the best female superheroes around
Wolverine's characterization is dominated by what an aggressive jerk he is, but he is getting bits and pieces that humanize him. He's sort of moving into the position of being defined by his mysteries. We know he used to be a secret agent, and we know his claws are part of his body. Aside from that, we know little. He's the only one among the team whose real name hasn't been revealed Even his powers are barely defined.
Colossus was probably the least developed of the team at this point, but that was also partially a reflection of his nature. Peter is a very nice guy, but stoic, and doesn't show his feelings much. His longing for home is a pretty big part of his character. Additionally, it really seems has if he and Storm have kind of a thing going at this point... But maybe that's just me.
Banshee, being the oldest of the team (sans Xavier), comes off as fairly wise and level-headed. He's also pretty... cool. Considering he's revealed to be a former Interpol agent, he might intentionally have been modeled after the James Bond aesthetic. He also has his relationship with Moira going for him. Interestingly, the theoretical love triangle with Xavier never much came into play.
Nightcrawler is a classic Marvel monster hero, and yet he's markedly different from the likes of the Thing or the Hulk. He's not bitter about his demonic appearance, but cavalier. In fact, he's remarkably well-adjusted and light-hearted. He's just a very fun character to follow. He's aware of the... seriousness of his position, but as he said in #109, he's chosen to accept who he is rather than go insane with worry. This dichotomy is quite refreshing.
The old players have moved forward as well, in their own ways. Jean's certainly going into interesting places with this Phoenix storyline, but even as early as this, I'm getting the impression that it's dominating her character a bit too much. Claremont didn't do anything with the “old” Jean, he gave her a complete makeover and radical new storyline. But then again, there never was much to the old Jean Grey, so this isn't really much of a loss.
Scott has remained much the same uptight and effective guy he's always been, albeit he's now written more eloquently than before. The scene in #101 where he left the others to cry was very indicative of his character: he's so concerned with controlling himself that such a show of emotion in front of the others was unthinkable. Xavier, in the meantime, has turned into a bit of a worry-wart. He's spent much of his time so far being stressed and distraught, mostly over his ominous intergalactic dreams. Even his new romance with Lilandra will do little to ease his mind.
All in all, they were shaping up to be an interesting bunch. Long-running superhero titles are character-driven by default, but Claremont's ultimate success with the X-Men – and his wider influence – came down to the increased focus on characterization. Even in a team setting, juggling over half a dozen members and an assortment of supporting characters, he really made each individual come to life. Over time, the psychological depth in the title only increased.
Index of Happenings:
Costumes: A Phoenix ensemble for Jean.
(1)It's predominantly green (probably carried over from her second Marvel Girl uniform), with a golden sash around her waist and golden gloves and boots, as well as some black around her neck. This is an utterly fantastic design, probably Jean's best ever and one of the all-time greats among the X-Men. The color is also very... adaptable, as we'll see.
Deaths: 6. (1) Jean sacrifices herself to bring the X-Men safely back to Earth.
(Jean Grey: 1 death.)
Resurrections: 4. Moments after her death, Jean is reborn as the Phoenix.
(Jean Grey: 1 resurrection.)
Missing Parents: 2. Scott's father reappears, so -1.
Summers Clan: 3. Corsair, aka Christopher Summers.
Revamps: 1.
Team: eight. Jean officially rejoins, though she's still not featured on the cast lineup on the cover.
Overall: sixteen.
Final word: John Byrne draws really good-looking women. No word of a lie.
Next time: A tour around the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment