Love and Madness collects stories of the X-Men and the junior team, the New Mutants from the spring and summer of 1984. I was nearing the end of third year at Strathclyde University and Paul Weller was a big influence on both my dress sense and my record collection.
At this point, the Byrne/Claremont Dark Phoenix era was almost four years old. Dave Cockrum's sci-fi adventures with the Starjammers and the Brood were over, as was the first Morlock saga by Paul Smith. Wolverine had starred in his iconoclastic Frank Miller miniseries and a new class of teen mutants was gaining and losing students.
Comics legend John Romita Jr had come aboard and Chris Claremont was creating a tapestry of interlinked plots and subplots. After nearly thirty years, it's intriguing to see how sophisticated this soap operatic approach was, even when Claremont rather overdoes the interior monologue or gets carried away, spotlighting his latest favourite new heroine.
Whose Life is it Anyway : Theatre maven Clarmont references the award-winning play and film that inspired the improv show's title. Xavier is getting used to being able to walk again while Punk Storm is dealing with her own delayed adolescence. Meanwhile, Kitty's pal Doug Ramsey is invited to attend the White Queen's Massachusetts Academy because of his gift for languages. The trope of every supporting character being an undisclosed mutant begins here. Doug's "quiet" power will lead to his enrolment in the New Mutants as Cypher. It's a bit surprising to see Emma Frost as kinky villainess after all this time.
The X-Men are swept up in the events of the first Secret War at this juncture.
Scaredy Cat: The first of three New Mutants reprints. The subplots of lllyana's demon magick move between the two titles over the next year. The X-Babies attempt to rescue Kitty and Doug but are almost overwhelmed by their own insecurities: Cannonball's lack of control over his flight, Wolfsbane's religious anxieties and Mirage's leadership crisis. I'd forgotten what an engaging group they were.
( Actually, I think Dani Moonstar is still codenamed "Psyche" at this point.)
Away Game: Cannonball continues to be in awe of Magma's abilities. I always felt Amara, the sixth New Mutant, was too much, too soon for the comic and was quickly overshadowed by Magik. Claremont introduces a delightful idea, years before Harry Potter- a rival class of evil mutants, the Hellions, for inter-school rivalry!
Getaway: Just as Sunspot and Magma tend to get less of the spotlight, some of the Hellions are less imposing than others. Tarot makes the same discovery as Jane Seymour's Solitaire in Live and Let Die- but we never discover who her lover will be. Jetstream, the cyborg flyer, is also overlooked after his contest with Cannonball in this story.
The second Thunderbird, with his mission of revenge, will go on to become a third-stringer X-Man as Warpath; the flighty, cruel Roulette and the malicious snob Empath will also return in the pages of X-Men. But the cute feline Catseye will only appear fleetingly from now on.
Claremont pulls a clever trick when Illyana and Dani briefly visit a future where the New Mutants have joined the Academy but with a teaser of the Demon Bear storyline which will introduce the bizarre Warlock, the storyline returns to the X-Men.
Young Dragons in Love: The merry mutants return from the Secret War with eyesore costumes and a lovestruck giant dragon in a whimsical parody of Toho monster movies. One of my favourite X-allies, the atomic samurai Sunfire has a cameo. In an homage to Lone Wolf and Cub, Wolverine adopts an orphaned child and the fateful Mutant Control Act is introduced.
Madness: Rogue really begins her ascent to X-stardom with this storyline. As a former, if short-lived, villain, she was a surprising and recent addition to the team. We learn here of the shocking consequences of her depowering of Ms. Marvel- Rogue is "becoming" Carol Danvers. We also learn that Carol's ex, Mike Rossi, believed assassinated way back in X-Men 96, is very much alive and that SHIELD has been infiltrated by the Hellfire Club. This may be the first time that the computer-like mind of Tessa (aka Sage) is depicted.
He'll Never Make Me Cry: Rogue's psychological problems are only alluded to in this episode which features the end of the Kitty/Peter romance. There was always something slightly icky about it given the probable five or six year age difference. Colossus gets into a bar brawl with The Juggernaut, a villain who from this point on morphs from unstoppable mystical behemoth and evil stepbrother into comic buffoon.
The Past...of Future Days: Four game-changing characters are introduced in this one story. The first, Naze, is a Native American shaman who will shortly become possessed by a chaos-god called the Adversary. ( That storyline will take some four years to play out in 1988's Fall of the Mutants.)
The second is the mutant Forge, a crippled Cheyenne Tony Stark who makes super- weapons for the US government. He will become a love interest for Storm and comes into play as Claremont weaves in threads from toy tie-in Rom's Dire Wraith invasion.
The third is the immortal mutant Selene, previously resident in Nova Roma in the Amazon rainforest, as seen in New Mutants. Essentially Satana ( killed off by Claremont -by editorial fiat?- in '79) in Hellfire bondage gear, a succubus with the powers of the Molecule Man, Selene will dominate New Mutants and X-Men stories for at least another year.
The fourth is Rachel Grey: Franklin Richards' girlfriend from the Sentinel future has timeshifted back a la The Terminator to change history. Claremont's attempt to have his Phoenix-cake and eat it, and the biggest hard-luck case in the X-verse, angst-ridden Rachel will mope and agonise for years to come and inspire many, many other less interesting time travel stories starring 'roid-raging Cable and Bishop.
Aside from JR Jr's shonky costume designs, this collection impressed me in two ways. First, the number of story threads is two or three times greater than modern comics. Secondly, Claremont really gets me to care for his characters: lovelorn Sam; timid Rahne; Xavier's delight in sports; Wolverine's samurai code; traumatised Rogue sharing her body with top agent Danvers; even supporting cast like Machiavellian intriguer Mystique or Selene's club-owner victim, good samaritan Nick Damiano. Wolfman and Perez's Titans was a saccharine imitation by comparison.
Coming soon: Zero Month in the New 52.
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Dougie, do your pupils know you read comics, and, if so, what's their reaction to the fact?
ReplyDelete(I'll try and get your CDs to you well before Christmas.)
Those who do are split into two camps: the juniors, who only care that I can draw ( a little bit) and the seniors, who dismiss comics as unsophisticated but go to the movies.
ReplyDeleteFor them, it's just another irrelevant product I'm interested in, like poetry.
I think it's interesting that the Dark Knight has much more cultural freight as a three-hour film than as a three-minute comic. I could teach one to a class but the other would be frowned upon.