From the Box: X-Men #62-64

I've been working on an extended history of the X-Men following the main team's 45 year history. As I sat down to work on it, I realized there was quite a bit in the way of details that I had forgotten, so I went back and started to re-read the series. With my biggest hole in knowledge falling in the mid-90s, I created a reading order list for the two main titles (Uncanny and X-Men) and got to it. Why it took me so long to realize that this would be a good time to work on From the Box is anyone's guess. But I digress - let's move on.

This storyline comes at somewhat of a transition point for the X-Men. Falling after Onslaught but just before Operation: Zero Tolerance, the story is basically using three issues to kill time while reminding everyone that the plot point of the Legacy Virus is still out there. Another transition point is that Scott Lobdell was still pulling double duty on the X-Titles, as a replacement for Mark Waid had not yet been added, so while Lobdell was handling plot, Ben Raab took scripting duty. I am familiar with Raab as the closing writer for Excalibur, having the unenviable task of following up an enjoyable run by Warren Ellis. Tough luck, man.

But the main story on the creative team is that it's the debut issue on art for Carlos Pacheco, and to celebrate the occasion, #62 was released with two covers - both by Pacheco. Even though the book was in its 60s by this point (issue count, not age), Pacheco was just the third regular artist for the title, following Andy Kubert, who came in when Jim Lee left the book. Pacheco would stick around for a year before heading off for other projects, and it was more often good art for Marvel's merry mutants.

The story features an odd grouping of the X-Men in Cyclops, Wolverine, Phoenix, Storm and Cannonball as the rest of the team - Rogue, Gambit, Beast, Bishop and Joseph - had been sent to Shi'ar space over in Uncanny. These X-Men answer a summons from an old acquaintance of Wolverine's, but come across a battle between Shang-Chi (Master of Kung-Fu!) and a bunch of ninjas. No, really. Wolverine helps out, threatens Shang for no reason, then all is explained and they go after the fabled Elixir Vitae of Shang-Chi's father, which may or may not be able to cure the Legacy Virus.

Now let me stop right there, because that's really all you need to know about this story. Nothing else substantial happens. The X-Men come across a very-much alive Sebastian Shaw who sends them to Wilson Fisk (Kingpin) who actually has the Elixir, then after Shaw and Fisk threaten each other, Storm blows the whole thing up and no one gets anything. Seriously - that's it. There's not really even a climactic moment to finish it up - Storm gets tired of waiting for one and blows everything up. The X-Men fly home and all is fine.

There were 2.5 character returns in this story, in Shang-Chi, Kingpin and half of one to Shaw, who had actually returned to life quite a while earlier in the pages of X-Force. Shang-Chi served no purpose in the story, aside from lending his father's Elixir to the story. For those of you not up on your Marvel B-listers, Shang-Chi's father was Fu Manchu, though by this point Marvel no longer had the rights to use his name, so he was simply referred to as "your father". Kingpin had been chucked from the New York underworld by Daredevil, though I have no idea as to his timeline, so I couldn't tell you how this all lined up. Apparently, though, this was a big deal. To my knowledge, this remains the only interaction between Wilson Fisk and the X-Men, but I'll fact check myself later.

What really makes this story suck, though, is the writing. Lobdell's plot is pretty thin, and Raab's script is downright awful. I cannot recall a storyline in which more exposition has been tossed out in page after page. An entire page is used for Kingpin to share through inner-monologue the entire history of Hong Kong. Shang Chi thinks about the X-Men's mission statement once per issue. He starts calling Storm 'wind-rider' right after he meets her. He also refers to the Legacy Virus as that thing he had been hearing so much of in the news, though the X-Men had just explained it all to him a few minutes prior. Cannonball repeatedly refers to himself as the 'greenest' of the X-Men (demonstrating how badly the character was handled at this point) and both Wolverine and Jubilee (in an O:ZT interlude) take turns mentioning that he is the best at what he does.

Pacheco's art is the bright point of this story, as all of his characters are quite nice to look at, though Phoenix and Storm have a bit of the overly rounded look (if you catch my drift) that was so prevalent in the 90s. His Wolverine looks awful, but that's hardly his fault. This was during the time when somebody thought it would be a good idea to devolve Wolverine into a beast-like humanoid, and give him a perpetually ripped costume with bandana. He looked strange in it, and downright horrible with 'street clothes' on. Fortunately, just after O:ZT, the look was abandoned and Wolverine returned to being human.

This story is recommended only for completists and those wondering just how the X-Men got on a plane for the start of O:ZT. Other than that, try to stay upwind from this one. It's a stinker.

From the Box: The X-Cutioner's Song

After great effort (and a lot of help from the Marvel Chronology Project) I put together a reading order of my archive of X-Men back issues and got to reading, starting at the 1991 launch of the second X-Men book (now called X-Men: Legacy). Not too far in, I came upon the 12-part, 4-title crossover, the X-Cutioner's Song. I've had the trade paperback of this for a while, but it always seemed to convoluted to really get into - but as I didn't want to read only half of the story, I dusted it off and got to it.


It was a laborious read, I'll have you know. To get into, you need to have some knowledge about past X-Force/New Mutants history as well as X-Factor knowledge. The basics are thus:

• Stryfe, who leads a bunch of generic villains known as the Mutant Liberation Front, looks exactly like X-Force leader Cable when not wearing his helmet.
• Apocalypse has two (rather redundant) groups of followers: the Four Horsemen and the Dark Riders. Neither should be in action without Apocalypse, who has been MIA since a battle with the original X-Factor.
• Mr. Sinister has a thing for Scott Summers and his juicy DNA (ewwww).
• The New Mutants left the X-Mansion to become X-Force, and none of the X-Teams particularly enjoy that.
• No one has much love for Cable.
• Cyclops was forced to send his son into the future after the baby was infected (by Apocalypse) with the techno-organic virus.

Once you have that down, we can get underway. Apparently, Cable shoots Professor X at a Lila Cheney concert, the Dark Riders (not working for Mr. Sinister instead of Apocalypse) kidnap Cyclops and Jean Grey, who are then traded to Stryfe for Summers DNA, which is a ruse - the container actually unleashes the Legacy Virus. The X-Men and X-Factor go after X-Force to get Cable, jail them, go around fighting for a while, then end up on the moon when Stryfe and Cable duke it out until Cyclops detonates a time portal. Ending comes, la la la. Oh yeah, Stryfe is apparently Cyclops' son who happens to be a little bitter about what happened to him. You can understand that, right?

The story, while about four parts too long, wasn't anything terrible. It got all the teams together, tied up a couple loose plot threads (for a while) and put a lot of focus on Wolverine, Cable and Bishop - the overly popular characters in the huge muscles, huge guns era of the early 90s. Looking back, with over 15 years having passed between then and now, the story doesn't really hold up too well.

• Down the line, someone decided the son should be the good guy, so it was revealed that Cable was actually Cyclops' son, not Stryfe.
• The crossover was a prominent reason that Peter David left X-Factor. The book would continue on with sub-par storylines for years, then sink into drivel before being retooled into the even worse Mutant X.
• Shortly therafter, a character was introduced actually called the X-Cutioner (a name so ridiculous, you'd think they went back in time to the Silver Age to make it) that had absolutely nothing to do with this story. Later readers would be confused by the two.
• Apocalypse had yet another death scene, this time in front of Archangel. That would have meant something had he not been revived when someone else needed a benevolent villain to stand around and holler nonsense.
• The story's epilogue released the Legacy Virus, which was a really big deal at first with characters worrying about the quickly-spreading disease infecting "hundreds" of mutants, and killing off big names like Magik, Mastermind and...uh...Revanche. Eventually, the Legacy Virus hit the background when (I suppose) creators didn't want to kill off major characters for the hell of it and the "hundreds" turned out to mostly be Genoshan mutates. No one seemed to notice when Moira MacTaggert and Pyro held on for years with the disease when everyone else died in like five days. Eventually, the virus was done away with at the cost of Colossus.

And thus you have the legacy of the X-Cutioner's Song. If you're aching to dive in, check out the trade. Actually, I managed to find all twelve individual issues for 50 cents each in a bargain bin, some even in the original bag complete with card! How X-Citing!

From the Box - Uncanny X-Men Annual #10

From the Box - a look at issues that have been sitting in the comic boxes unattended for quite some time. Today's edition:

UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #10
by Chris Claremont and Art Adams

Much like today's annuals, those of the 80s were giant sized issues that had little effect on the overall run of the title. Occasionally you'd get one major change out of the book, but other than that, the story would be largely forgettable. This issue's main point is bringing in Longshot, fresh from his introductory mini-series. It also establishes Mojo as an X-Men villain, fresh off his appearance in the same year's New Mutants annual.

As with most Mojo stories, it gives the writer (in this case, Chris Claremont) the opportunity to do pretty much whatever he can imagine to the characters. In this case, Mojo steadily regresses the X-Men (along with Magneto, Psylocke and Longshot) to infancy, then regrows them to adulthood, but in his image. The New Mutants, now decked out in strangely designed costumes (with Cypher wearing a Cyclops mask and Cannonball wearing pretty much what would become his original X-Force uniform) go after them and end up saving the day. It's once again pounded into our skulls that Psylocke has bionic eyes granted by Mojo, but this is a storyline that ends up going absolutely nowhere.

The biggest problem here is establishing where in continuity this issue fits. The X-Men have a straight shot of issues leading into the Mutant Massacre, which heavily shifts the roster of the team. Psylocke does not appear in the regular issues of Uncanny X-Men until after Nightcrawler, Colossus and Shadowcat (all appearing in this book) have been taken out, and Longshot stays missing until afterwards. I guess that would place this in the downtime right before the attack on the Morlocks begins, especially since Colossus is wearing his original costume, rather than his sleeveless red one. It's a mystery then, after having proven himself in battle here, that Longshot is not used in the fight against the Marauders. Or not even mentioned for that matter.

For the second year straight, art is provided by the amazing talents of Art Adams. I had a poster on my wall of his work for years and have a shirt featuring his amazing team shot featured in Classic X-Men #1, but his proportions are a little odd this time around. More than once, Cannonball's legs make up 3/4 of his entire height, which makes him look like his pants are pulled up to his armpits. Costume designs for Wolfsbane and Sunspot are particularly bad, but I think that may well be the point. How did the kids find time to make costumes when they had to save the X-Men anyway?

This is an issue that does not try to take itself seriously with such a ridiculous concept. Claremont repeated the story in 2005, but it didn't work out nearly as well, as it became a story of morales, rather than simply a fun issue. This one is nothing but ridiculous fun, and even though it's not a particularly strong story, it's definitely a fun read.

Jacob's Retro Grade: B-