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Episode 1443 Talkback - Spotlight on The X-Men in the Chromium Age, Part Two
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Our X-tended coverage of the X-Men in the '90s soldiers on in this look at the years 1993-97, everything from 'The Phalanx Covenant' to 'The Trial of Gambit'! ENTER... the Age of Apocalypse! ATTEND... the wedding of Jean Grey and Scott Summers! TREMBLE... at the terrifying menace of Onslaught! WONDER... as two people agree that Maggott was a cool character! Plus, reflections on Generation X from Dani O'Brien, and some Excalibur sword-strokes from Murd. (2:30:44)
Listen here.
Listen here.
Comments
Jean is the one to actually propose to Scott. (Funny thing is there is a misprint in the issue with the word balloon missing)
Sabertooth does scare the crap out of Jubilee but it's Boom Boom he builds a bond with. Sabertooth also became so popular there was a Sabertooth Classic series launched.
No mention of X-Men Unlimited #1? I'll hold out until I'm done with the episode.
Joe Mad is back at Marvel he just wrapped a story arc on Savage Wolverine and is launching Inhuman with Matt Fraction.
Yup Jean jumped into Emma's body after the X-Men were attacked by Fitzroy and his Sentinels while negotiating a truce at the Hellfire Club back in Uncanny #281. Emma was thought killed and Jean was surrounded by Sentinels and thought killed.
The Scott/Jean wedding is easily my favorite comics wedding story of all time (admittedly, I've always loved "quiet moments in between the battles" superhero stories), and it had all kinds of great moments: Logan's letter to Jean & Scott and the one to Charles, the reveal that maybe he wasn't so far away as he let on, Jean's bonding moment with Rachel Summers, Cable & Rachel's reactions to events, Cable's temporary truce with Dr. Valerie Cooper, Jean's dance with Charles ("I was taught you always save the last dance for the one who brought you to the party."), everyone cheating like mad and using their powers to get the bouquet and garter... fun stuff.
As for the Joe Mad stuff, I only read one issue he drew, a Zero Tolerance crossover issue where Spider-Man fought Marrow. I liked his artwork, even if I thought he drew Spidey too muscular, but what I really loved about that story was a scene between Bastion and J. Jonah Jameson. Bastion was offering JJJ a disc containing personal information on the lived of all of the X-Men, but Jonah wanted nothing to do with it - he considered the X-Men (like all superheroes) to be menaces, and he wanted them put away, but he knew a deal with the devil when he saw it and sent Bastion packing. One of my favorite Jonah moments ever... I love it when we see that there's still a decent journalist and human being somewhere inside the ol' skinflint, however deeply it might be buried most of the time.
Blink The 616 Blink was recently brought back by the Black Queen (Selene)
Legion - Mike Carey tackled Legion in his X-Men Legacy series that's the one you're thinking about.
Generation X one of my all time favorite launches. Chris Bachelo killing the art. Chamber was my favorite character. And I loved the romance between him and Paige (Husk)...like how he blew up a portion of the dorms when she tried to kiss him.
Age of Apocalypse Generation Next had one of the most jacked up ending of all the books...Colossus giving up on the students to save his sister...
Things that changed because of AoA.
Dark Beast arrives earlier in time and is made out to be the originator of the Morlocks. He is still around last seen in Astonishing X-Men last month or so.
Sugar Man arrives earlier in time and is made out to be the person behind Genosha and their Genegineering Progam.
X-Man and Holocast (later reneamed Nemesis) both arrive in current day.
Sabertooth right before the AoA in Wolverine #90 him and Sabertooth have a knock down dragged out fight for the whole issue. It had like 3 four page fold outs and it ended with Wolverine popping his outside claws infront of Sabertooth's cheeks. And Sabertooth baiting him into popping the middle claw. Wolverine does pop the claw but right at that moment the crystalization wave from the M'kran washes over them.
Once they come back to our reality whatever damage Wolverine did when he popped the third claw changed Sabertooth's brain. He could no longer get the "glow" that telepaths could trigger calming him. Back in his mini series his personal telepath Birdie was killed by his son Graydon Creed. That's more or less how he ended up on the X-Men's steps. He'd start tweaking for that hit.
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I also think it's weird to have a roomful of people repeatedly expressing their love for Gambit (one of my most hated comics characters of all), but mostly it's the sound levels that are making it difficult to listen. :D
Overall, this was the era where my X-buying went on cruise control. I generally LIKED most of this stuff, but towards the end of the material discussed here my interest was seriously flagging. I became aware of the fact that I was buying nearly a dozen X-titles a month based on HABIT, not on actual enjoyment of what was happening in the issues. A large part of that had to do with me buying X-Men Classic on a monthly basis. It was my favorite '90s X-title, even though it just reprinted stuff from the '80s! By this time in my comics reading "career" I had become aware of the fact that there was so much better stuff out there. I had discovered Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Frank Miller, and my back issue purchases were starting to put my current X-titles to shame.
That said, there were highlights.
I loved Joe Mad's artwork, especially early on. I remember that it took a long time for Wizard to even acknowledge him as a hot artist, but my 12-year-old self had been HUGE on the guy's work right from the '93 Deadpool mini-series onward. I don't have many positive things to say about his work in more recent years, but Joe Mad on Uncanny X-Men was a dream come true.
As for the crossovers during this time... I'm part of the small contingent that doesn't think Age of Apocalypse was all THAT great. It was okay. It was a great idea with a ton of ambition and guts behind it. But the actual issues? ALL the actual issues? Quality varied wildly. And as for other crossovers like the Phallanx Covenant and Operation Zero Tolerance? Not a big fan. They make X-Cutioner's Song seem godly in comparison.
Okay, enough blathering. I'll listen to the actual episode now.
X-Men Chronicles #1 was released later and was the AOA counterpart to X-Men #1 in the 1960s. Apocalypse raided the missile base in Florida and Magneto sent his X-Men (him included) to stop the missile launches. Very cool! It also showed how the AOA Sabretooth went from a horseman to a member of the X-Men.
X-Men Chronicles #2 was OK. It was Christopher Papa Summers crashing to Earth and how Sinister, Cyclops, and Havok fought to find him. It also had a cameo by Joe Roberts at the Daily Bugle, which was very cool. I loved how they added other characters from 616 other than the X-Men into little or big spots, so you could see how AOA was truly a global universe.
Did I mention I love AOA and can't wait to scar my infant son with it when he gets old enough???
Onslaught- I remember reading that Mark Waid was against making Onslaught a hybrid of Xavier and Magneto. Which I think would have worked better.
After X-Man crashes on our world Xavier spies on him in psychic form (X-Man #9?). Sensing another presence X-Man did the impossible and pulled Xavier's psychic form into the physical world. Thus giving Onslaught the know how to cross from the psychic plane to the physcial world.
Since Onslaught was born from a mutant other mutants would empower him. That's why the heroes had to be the one to give Onslaught substance.
Ice Man- If I'm not mistaken Ice Man's father actually stood up for Mutants against the friends of humanity.
Bishop and Deathbird- Deathbird kidnaps Bishop and keeps him constrained saying he was damaged in the explosion of the X-Men's ship. The two spend lots of time in space and have a great one issue adventure.
Trial of Gambit - Gambit also recruited all the Marauders but no one knows the girl he saved was Marrow.
One further tidbit on Onslaught related to Mark Waid from Column 185: Waid's take on Onslaught was that he was simply going to be Professor Xavier's dark side come to life/taking over. Magneto was not originally a part of the equation.
X-Men Unlimited I may be mistaken but I think #1 of this series was the first ever X-Men drawn by Bachelo. It was the story where Storm, Cyclops and Professor X crashed in the Artic while being attacked by Siena Blaze who joined the Upstarts. At the end of it all I think Magneto was secretly the one to rescue them and Xavier remembers it way later on.
They tried really hard to make the Upstarts into something big but it never took off...I'll have to research the group but I think even Selene was supposed to be a member.
From 1992 to 1994, I thought the Upstarts were awesome. Very cool concept, and it seemed like every time they appeared they threatened to do something BIG, and usually fulfilled on that promise. Then the writers just sort of forgot about them and their competition. I read somewhere that finally the plotlines were resolved in some C-list title in 1998 or something.
Games Master did make an appearance a couple years back in the X-23 one shot.
Magneto was still on Avalon after Xavier mind-wiped him, under the care of the Acolytes. During the battle with Holocaust and Exodus that destroyed Avalon, Colossus strapped Magneto into an escape pod and sent him to Earth. When Joseph first appeared, he was discovered by a nun who ran an orphanage in South America and he spoke German. He had no memory of who he was or what his name was, so one of the children named him Joseph. When he shaved his beard he saw that he looked to be in his twenties which he knew was surprising, but didn't know why.
After dispatching some local drug lords, the nun, who had an old magazine article about the X-Men, encouraged Joseph to go seek them out. He left and later turned up in X-Men Unlimited, where he ran into Rogue. At first, Rogue thought he was Magneto and attacked him. When she discovered he had changed, she brought him to the X-Men, and they arrived just about the time of Onslaught.
All the X-Men believed him to be Magneto right from the start, and Joseph knew that was what they believed, too. Learning about Magneto's past, Joseph decided to try to atone for what he believed he'd done as Magneto.
So there was no real mystery on the X-Men's part about whether or not he was Magneto—they all assumed he was. The amnesia made sense, since Magneto had been mind-wiped, but the mystery was how he was de-aged. Then in Uncanny #350, when it was revealed at the end of the issue that Magneto was posing as Erik the Red, it was only the readers who saw this. The X-Men never knew Magneto was Erik the Red, so they left Antarctica still believing Joseph was Magneto (with the exception of Maggott, who had a brief moment with Magneto and Maggott said something along the lines of "you've never given me a reason not to trust you," but he kept quiet about this encounter to the other X-Men). Readers knew differently and then during The Magneto War story is when Magneto made his return.
After that revelation, there were a few different theories flying around about who Joseph really was. I believe Wizard even did an article about it. A lot of people thought he might be Charles Lehnsherr, Magneto and Rogue's son from the Age of Apocalypse.
As far as what was originally intended, I've heard two stories. One is that at first, Lobdell actually did intend for Joseph to be Magneto, but then editorial changed their minds and Lobdell came up with a story where it would be revealed that Joseph was actually Proteus. I've also heard that Lobdell always intended for Joseph to be Proteus in a cloned body of Magneto. I'm not sure how that worked out or what the details of it were, but that's what I've heard. I've tried searching for some more concrete info on it, but haven't come up with much.
I don't know what plans, if any, Kelly and Seagle had for Joseph's origin, but after they left the books, Alan Davis came on for The Magneto War and revealed that Joseph was a clone and introduced Astra, although I think that was an editorial decree.
The first 25 or so issues of Generation X were indeed pretty damn great. I wish Bachalo didn't take that extended break so early on -- he left for like a year, to draw the second "Death" mini-series with Neil Gaiman, which he actually ended up only doing the first issue and a half of. The fill-ins were mixed until his return. Those issues leading up to #25 were amazing, though. Wasn't Mark Buckingham the inker? Bachalo and Buckingham were a pretty great team.
It wasn't mentioned, but I thought the X-Man series sort of went under the radar and was fairly good. It was very '90s and the very mention of "Nate Grey" might cause some X-fans to run away screaming, but I thought it was a nice, fairly isolated series with great art and fine characterwork (yes, including that weird (but interesting!) borderline-romantic relationship between Nate and Maddie Pryor). Jeph Loeb's issues were okay, but I thought Terry Kavanagh wrote at the peak of his powers when he took over, and I appreciated it. Steve Skroce's stuff is always interesting to look at, and Roger Cruz is no slouch either. I really enjoyed this outlying title that followed one out-of-place character as he bopped around the Marvel Universe, running into guys like Spider-Man and the Abomination. It was a fun series. That might be what I was thinking of. But I also kind of remember something happening with Sienna Blaze in X-Force. And for some reason I have the impression that some of these characters popped up in issues of X-Man and Generation X after I stopped reading those series. As far as I know, the entire Upstarts plot was eventually just... dropped. Maybe it was just the 12-year-old kid in me, but in 1993 I was basically obsessed with their competition and thought GamesMaster was cool as hell. I guess probably enough "rules" were broken for the entire contest to be rendered null and void?
I think Maggot was killed in Frank Tiere's Weapon X series in the early 2000s (he was in the mutant concentration camp). I think one of his maggots may have survived...
Nevermind.
That said ... I was beginning to think I was the only one that couldn't stand Gambit.
One of my favorite scenes from an X comic was the one where we see Remy impaled on Wolverine's claws. Knew it wouldn't be real but it was still satisfying to see.
As for the talk of not understanding the way the X-Men responded to finding out about Gambit's part in the Mutant Massacre, I can't help but think that people are down playing the importance of the event.
In thinking about it for myself, I was trying to think of a real world analogy that might help to understand the the part that Remy played (as minor as some may think it was) in such a tragic event. I ended up settling on Wounded Knee.
Imagine you're Native American living with a group of fellow Native American's struggling with the realities of living in a world that 'hates and fears you'. Now along comes a fellow Native American whom you don't know, has some questions about his past but you take him, make him part of your community and live with him for a significant period of time. Connections and bonds are made with this person, to the point where you might just begin to feel that what his secrets are don't matter that much. Then you find out that he led the US Calvary to the location of camping women, children and elderly Native Americans at Wounded Knee. You realize that he didn't take part in the massacre, but he did enough to make it a reality and while he did save one small girl amongst the carnage, you lost friends there. In fact a member of your community was the chief to those massacred. Would you just feel that what he did in betraying his people was really just a small thing, easily forgiven and perhaps forgotten?
That is how I picture Gambit's part in the Mutant Massacre and as such I totally understand the X-Men ditching him in Antarctica. I'm more impressed that they didn't kill him on the spot in a fit of grief and rage over what he had done.
Perhaps I'm a bit blinded to this though as I can't stand Gambit.