roy thomas

The X-Men Go Out with a Bang. (Sorry Mr. Worthington!)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hey folx! I’m back, and we have some weird X-Men stuff to talk about. I didn’t get as much reading done on our camping trip as I’d thought, but that’s just because Kevin and I were having too much fun with our friends and we never got the rain that was forecasted. (I’d planned on spending the rainy day in the tent reading and listening to the rain on the tent. It’s my favorite thing!) Between that, an insanely busy week at work thus far, and two D&D campaigns, I’m just now getting time to write about the rest of the series. So, let’s get into it, shall we?

So, my darlings, we only have three, that’s right, THREE, issues left of the original X-Men run. This run ends with issue #66. Technically, the series will start back up with issue #67 in December of 1970, but these will just be reprints of the original stories. This was a format that Marvel used a lot at this time. X-Men had been cancelled, but then, seeing the sales numbers of the Neal Adams issues we’re going to talk about today, they decided to bring it back as reprints. Since we’ve already talked about these stories, we won’t be covering them again in the blog. I will let you know which issues were printed during the months we’re covering each time so we can keep up with it. But for now, let’s talk about these last few issues.

Issues 64 is a fun little romp that introduces us to a new mutant named Sunfire. The issue takes place right as the X-Men get home from their ordeal in the Savage Land, and they’re all still exhausted. But, while watching the news, they get a ping from their mini-Cerebro and Bobby, Hank, and Warren decide to go check it out. (Jean and Scott aren’t there). It’s Sunfire! He’s a Japanese diplomat’s son who wants to ruin his father’s legacy of working with the US. See, Shiro’s (Sunfire’s) mom was gravely injured by the bomb in Hiroshima and then died in childbirth. Shiro’s uncle has been raising him to hate the Americans for the bombing and the war. So, now, under his uncle’s conditioning, he sees his father as a traitor and attacks him at the UN in NYC. (Papa doesn’t know Sunfire is his sun, FWIW.) The three X-Men try to stop him, but Sunfire ends up hurting Beast pretty bad before getting away and the X-Men retreat to their city apartment to regroup. They meet up with Jean and Scott and the five of them follow Shiro and his father to DC, where they’re set to meet with Congress. Sunfire tries to blow up the Capital Building!! The X-Men try to stop him. Cyke’s powers are a fairly even match for Sunfire’s, but it takes Marvel Girl stepping in to help to turn the tide of the battle. And then, figuring out that this villain is his son, Shiro’s dad appears at the top of the Capital Building to reason with his son. But then evil uncle shows up and shoots dad. This is way too much for Sunfire, and he kills his uncle before rushing to his father’s side to renounce he behavior and turn himself over to the police. The X-Men shrink away into the trees before they can again be blamed for something that wasn’t their fault.

Like I said, this was a fun little issue, and overall I really enjoyed it. Per a note in the beginning of the issue, Don Heck subbed in on art for Neal Adams on this one, but this didn’t bother me as much as I’d thought it would. I do still have a problem with Scott CONSTANTLY telling Jean to stay out of the fighting, but since it’s just Scott doing it at this point, it’s less about overall treatment of women on the team, and more about super icky chauvinism from Scott towards his girlfriend. It’s a theme that’s going to continue in the series. The women are more and more treated like equal members of the teams, but the guys start exhibiting really problematic behavior in their romantic relationships that are presented as good or virtuous. So, best believe we’ll be talking about all of that toxic masculinity as we come across it! And speaking of toxic masculinity, lets jump over to our next issue!

We know you don’t, Scott. But you’re gonna have to figure it out ASAP.

Issue 65 begins with the X-Men arriving back at the mansion from DC to find Lorna and Alex in full costume waiting for them at the door. They say there’s no time to wait, the gang needs to change back into their uniforms because there’s a terrible danger. But either because the team is tired, or maybe because Roy Thomas is gone this month and Dennis O’Neil is writing, or maybe just because they needed to fill some pages, the X-Men proceed to start fighting with Alex and Lorna about this, going so far as to all use their powers on each other until FINALLY Scott takes his head out of his ass and calls for order. They all go in and change and then fight again. SOME. MORE. about these aliens that are headed towards earth to take over and enslave everyone. The X-Men are still skeptical, even after Alex lays out all the evidence and they fight some more until Alex reveals how they formed the plan to stop the aliens. Are you ready for this, my loves?… Fucking Xavier is still alive.

Not back from the dead. He’s been alive this entire fucking time. And Jean KNEW but was forbidden from telling anyone else. And it gets worse. He was never actually “dying” like he told the X-Men a few months back (a few years in real time, but only months in comic time.). What actually happened was this: He was researching this alien civilization because he figured out they were moving their planet towards ours to come conquer the Earth. In the meantime, apparently Changeling (remember him?) shows up and tells Chuck he’s dying, and wants to redeem himself. So Chuck asks Changeling to impersonate him so he can focus on this research, and then LETS HIM DIE IMPERSONATING HIM and lets the whole world think he’s dead. Oh, and apparently he’s been IN THE BASEMENT OF THE MANSION THIS ENITRE FUCKING TIME. So yeah, we’re going to stop right here and talk about how INCREDIBLY ABUSIVE this all is. Guys, Xavier is a MONSTER. Let’s make a list of the evidence, shall we? First, he took a venerable, dying mutant that came to him for help and manipulated the poor guy into dying for him. Next, he lied to everyone but Jean for MONTHS and then made her lie to all of her teammates/friends and her boyfriend. (I won’t even get into the shitty, patriarchal bullshit that is making the only woman on the team be Xavier’s emotional confidant because it’s automatically a woman’s job to be the emotional sounding board for toxic men.) Then, he just shows back up, apparently weakened, and just starts ordering everyone around again. THEN he takes this band of exhausted, confused, and betrayed kids, MENTALLY ERASES THEIR EXHAUSTION, forces them to keep training, and then sends them on a suicide mission. All in one goddamn issue! I seriously want to scream. This man cares NOTHING about these kids. They are simply tools for him to use to advance his plans. The writers gloss over his jumping into their brains to erase their exhaustion, but we’re not going to. This is so fucking fucked up. Because look, the kids have been running non-stop for days now. They just got done fighting Sunfire, who really messed them up, and they haven’t rested or slept. They’re not just mentally tired. They’re physically exhausted and injured. So, a mental wipe isn’t healing injuries, it’s just making their brains ignore it. He’s forcing them to keep training through physical exhaustion and injury. Someone is going to get REALLY hurt. I mean, not literally, because obviously the writers didn’t actually think this plot point through to it’s conclusion. But for real, it sucks!

But, back to the plot. The kids head to the magnetic south pole to fight the scout ship that’s already there, while Lorna stays back to help Xavier with his part of the plan. They get there just in time to see SHIELD send some jets at the ship and get completely destroyed. (We also get a quick cameo from Nick Fury himself!) But our X-Men are stupid brave and fly their specially designed ship directly inside of the scout ship, fight a giant green alien puppy/sea monster thing, and then fight some of the aliens. Meanwhile, Chuck connects himself telepathically to EVERYONE on the planet, and zeroes in on the good will of those who have it. Polaris (Lorna for those that don’t remember) uses her magnetic powers to help him direct all of this good will to Marvel Girl at the magnetic south pole. MG directs this at Havok, who somehow uses his powers to amplify it and send it into Cyke, who then sends it via his solar eye beams up at the planet of the would-be invaders. Meanwhile, Iceman uses his powers to keep Cyke from overheating from the raw power running through him. This plan succeeds in turning the aliens away because apparently, they have no sense of compassion or empathy, so sending all of that to them freaks them out and they run away. I know it sounds SO. FUCKING. CORNY. But, I have to be totally honest. It kind of works! It at very least gives us some gorgeous artwork of how all of the powers build on each other.

The downside to all of this awesome power combining? Chuck is in a coma!! Did I say downside? I meant bonus. (Look, I’ve made my feelings about Chuck known since the beginning, so let’s not act surprised that I’m happy he’s out of commission.) And it’s this comatose leader that moves us into our final X-Men issue for awhile: Issue #66.

See, the kids don’t know how to help Xavier out of his coma, so they fight amongst themselves like always. Especially Alex and Bobby, who seem to be fighting over Lorna until she puts them both in their place. They try mind-probing the prof, but it doesn’t really work. And only then do they realize that they have a fucking telepath in the room as ask Jean to try and get into his head. This really bothers me, because Jean has been getting stronger and stronger lately, she was the only one who knew Xavier was alive, and she’s been communicating with him telepathically for months. So, there is no reason she shouldn’t have offered to try right away, or why no one else should’ve thought of it too. I have a really hard time with how much Jean is pushed to the side constantly, basically until Claremont gets his hands on her in the 70’s and 80’s. She’s so incredibly awesome and powerful and these early writers don’t get that AT ALL. It’s so frustrating.

Anyway, Jean finally jumps into Xavier’s head and gets flashes of the Hulk. Eventually, the gang figures out it’s probably Bruce Banner, and not the Hulk that the prof needs, and they head out to find him. Scott asks Alex to stay behind to guard the professor. Lorna offers to stay with him, so, OF COURSE, a crazy jealous Bobby insists on staying too. Because, they don’t need everyone available to confront the FUCKING HULK or anything, Bobby. Goddess, I can’t even with this toxic jealousy between these boys. I am so fucking over it. I love Bobby Drake y’all, but I really hate him in this era. I miss the sweet kid who went on double dates with Hank and didn’t pick fights with everyone. He’s turning into Hawkeye. I take that back, it’s worse than that. He’s turning into fucking Henry Pym. Don’t do that to my Bobby, Roy Thomas! Seriously!!

Okay, so, Marvel Girl, Cyke, Beast, and Angel head out to find Bruce Banner. They find the Hulk in Vegas, and of course Hulk won’t listen to them so they fight. MG finally brings him down mentally (Yay Jeanie!!) and he turns back into Bruce Banner. Bruce tells them he worked on a device with Xavier that should help save him, and that it’s in one of Bruce’s hidden labs. But just then, the Army shows up to get the Hulk, which just turns Bruce BACK into a giant green rage monster, and he takes off. The X-Men follow before the Army can arrest them, and they end up out in the desert. They fight again because Hulk doesn’t like people talking about Bruce. Their fight causes an avalanche, which reveals a hidden lap in the mountain. The kids find the device in there, and let the Hulk take off as they head home with the device and save the professor. And we end the series with the whole team around the professor’s bed getting ready to fight another day.

Let’s pause here to talk about this run of X-Men as a whole. I’ve gotta be honest, loves. This was REALLY HARD to get through. This over-the-top, hyper masculine writing its not for me at all. I know there are a LOT of people who love these old comics for the nostalgia of the beginnings. And that’s totally fair. Maybe it’s because my intro to the X-Men was the 90’s cartoon, but for me, this was just painful. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels a little guilty for hating this era so much. I really WANT to like it. But I just can’t overall. I mean, there are definitely good moments throughout. Magneto is so over-the-top and fun during this era. And it’s been a lot of fun seeing the first appearances of characters like Havok, Polaris, Ka-Zar, and Sauron. Plus, I think starting at the very beginning for this project was important, no matter how painful it was. But I’m not gonna lie folx, I am so excited to be moving on to the Claremont run. We’ve got some of my absolute favorite characters coming up once we get to Giant Size and I cannot wait. We’ve got some Avengers to read before we get there, but we’re getting close!

Before we get to Avengers or Giant Size, we need to talk about parts of Ka-Zar 2&3. So, this series of Ka-Zar only lasted three issues, and it was a quarterly magazine with multiple stories in each issue. Issues 2 & 3 included a story about Angel that we are going to cover. It seems to take place after issue 66 of X-Men, even though issue 2 came out the month before. In these issues, Warren’s father, Warren Worthington Jr., is ill and Warren is at home visiting after stopping a bank robbery solo as Angel. He leaves for the evening to take his girlfriend, Candy out on a date. (We’ve met Candy once or twice in the X-Men comic, and, if I remember correctly, this won’t be the last time we see her either.) Anyway, we cut to the goons Angel stopped earlier, and they work for a villain called The Dazzler (not to be confused the the AMAZING Alison Blaire who won’t make her spectacular debut for another nine years!). The Dazzler has some nefarious plan we never really learn the details of, but somehow pulling them off hinges on murdering Mr. Worthington Jr. So, the goons sneak into the Worthington mansion and do just that. Because Warren’s father is a well known businessman and socialite in NYC, his murder is reported on the radio as soon as the police arrive at the mansion. Unfortunately for everyone, Warren hears this report in the car on his way home with Candy. He FREAKS out, and takes off to chase the murderers, leaving Candy alone on the side of the road (luckily, he also left her the car since he ran into the woods and then took off as Angel). He finds the murderers on their flying pogo sticks (Yes, that’s really what they’re called. LOL.) and fights them. He’s beating one of them mercilessly when the police show up. They’re about to arrest Angel as well as the murderer, but luckily FBI Agent Duncan is there too, and let’s Angel go with a warning about not taking the law into his own hands, which Angel is clearly not going to listen to. For those that don’t remember Agent Duncan, he was the FBI agent we met all the way back in X-Men #44 and he’s being coordinating with Xavier to help the X-Men save the day. (Yeah, I’d completely forgotten about him too!)

Warren heads home to console his mother before going to find The Dazzler, but he doesn’t get the chance, because apparently The Dazzler has technology to transport Warren from his mansion to Dazzler’s lair. So now Warren is a prisoner. But, since no one knows he’s Angel, he easily sneaks out of his cell and confronts The Dazzler, who tries to convince Angel to back down by revealing that he also has Candy prisoner. He’s banking on a hero not being willing to let her die, even if he doesn’t know her. (Cause, you know, no one’s figured out that Angel is Warren. LOL) The thing is, Warren was already blaming Candy for his father’s death, because our egotistical, hot-tempered Angel is not coping with his very fresh grief well, my loves. He freezes in place and The Dazzler’s goons close in to remove his mask. And that’s where we end! We’re told the rest of this story will appear in Marvel Tale’s #30, but that won’t be published until April of 1971, so we’ll have to wait to see how it plays out. I have to say, this was a good little arc thus far! It’s super sad, and just the beginning of a pattern of tragedy and trauma for all of our mutants. Angel is super angry and hyper-masculine in this arc, but this time it doesn’t bother me. All of this takes place in two days, and his father was just violently murdered. This feels like a REAL response from a young kid who is also a superhero in this situation. I just hope it’s wrapped up well when we get to MT#30.

And with that, we’re done with our X-Men for a few years. We’ll be jumping back into Avengers with our next outing, as our favorite mutant twins are making their return to the group. And we’ll be there for awhile while we wait for Giant Size to come in 1975. We’ll also be adding more titles before then, as our wayward mutants join some other teams to bide their time. I’m excited to move on to this next chapter, and meet some really fun new characters. So, until next time my loves, keep searching….

1969 Part 1: Let’s talk Representation

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my loves! It’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve written about comics, so I’m feeling a little rusty and anxious about this post. So, bare with me as I get my bearings again.

Since currently the only title we’re reading is X-Men, (and because I am DESPERATE to get to Giant Size and Claremont’s run!) we’re going to fly through 1969 in just two posts. This post will cover issues #52-59. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and a few different story arcs, so lets jump in!

So, X-Men #52 is the end of the arc we started 5 years ago. (Oops!) I’ll do my best to catch you guys up, but you can also refresh your memories here! Basically, Mesmero is trying to carry out Magneto’s vision of mutant supremacy. He has captured Lorna Dane, telling her she’s Magneto’s daughter and that she must rule in his stead until he returns. We learn that Magneto is apparently NOT dead, and Bobby storms off on the rest of the team when they are forced to leave Lorna behind with Mesmero. Cyke tells the team he has a plan, and we cut to Erik the Red, challenging Mesmero for leadership of this whole silly plot. And that brings up to #52!

So, issue 52 is the wrap up to this arc. Eric the Red proceeds to fight his way through ALL of Mesmero’s goons and Mesmero until he is face to face with Lorna, who, despite recognizing that her dad’s plans are evil, feels she must help him because he’s her blood. Erik talks his way into joining Magneto as his second in command, and Mesmero is pissed guys! The whole thing is crazy silly, but it’s still fun. Then we cut to X-Men, where Jean is telepathically reaching out to each of them to begin Cyke’s plan that he mentioned at the end of issue 51. We still don’t know exactly what it is, but Bobby isn’t part of it since he stormed out on the team last issue. MG, Beast, and Angel arrive at the hideout of Mags and Mesmero and sneak in. They’re confronted by Erik the Red, who turns out to be Cyclops!! I have to be honest, I didn’t actually see that one coming. I probably should have, but I didn’t. It’s a great little plan on Scott’s part, until his identity is IMMEDIETLY discovered by Mesmero and the X-Men accidently use the trap they’ve laid against Bobby instead of the bad guys!! Way to go guys!

Anyway, the X-Men fight Mesmero and his henchmen after Beast gets an unconcious Iceman to safety. Bobby wakes up and find Lorna. He tells her that he spoke with her adoptive parent’s and has proof that she is NOT Magneto’s daughter. Thus free of her allegiance to Mags, Lorna absolutely destroys the remaining base and bad guys. Mags escapes (because of course he does!), our X-Men + Lorna live to fight another day, and Bobby and Lorna seem to be getting very close. But let’s pause here for a second to talk about Lorna. Cause guys, I have issues. Lorna Dane is a pretty cool character who is going to get totally under-utilized as the years go on, but this is the first time I’ve read her origin. And I have to say, it really sucks. Like Jean and Wanda before her, she starts off a totally one-dimensional character. A damsel in distress that is too stupid to question these villains feeding her some legit CRAZY story about how a mass murderer is her real father and also too weak willed to not question it and just go along with them because “blood” or some such nonsense. SERIOUSY?!? Like, she spends all of issue 52 complaining about how Mags is evil, but she has to defend him to the death because he’s her father. Girl, you’re powerful enough to bring this entire operation down in a second, and you don’t even think to do it until Bobby tells you that you were lied to?!? Even then, you just believe Bobby with no proof (although, in Bobby’s defense, he does have receipts and offers them to her, she just apparently doesn’t need to see the evidence.) I’m so fucking sick of reading women who are nothing but pretty things for the guys to swoon over and sometimes have small victories against the villains. It’s exhausting. Especially when I’ve read more modern stuff and know how fucking bad-ass these same women will be under a better writer. Jean, Wanda, Lorna: they will all eventually have world-ending, reality-bending, earth-shattering powder and they deserve better than this. Ok…rant over for now. Let’s continue on.

On top of this silly story, issue 52 brings us the art of Werner Roth who has made a few appearances as artist in the past. His art is great, if a little “house style” for my liking. It’s awesome art, it’s just not Steranko, so I’m a little sad. But nothing I can’t get past. And also, we need to talk about Erik the Red’s AMAZING bondage outfit. Who knew Scotty had that side to him?!?

But seriously, with that arc neatly wrapped up, lets move on the the next one! But first! Issue #53, “The Rage of Blastaar!” (AKA, the useless filler issue) Seriously, this is a one-off story about some alien named Blastaar who gets pulled down to earth when Jean tries to use some of Chucks equipment. He’s very angry and ragey, and he’s absolutely destroying our X-Men until Jean and Bobby make a bunch of ice mannequins to throw at him, they melt, and make a connection between him and the machine and he’s sent right back to where he came from. I wish I were kidding. We’re even treated to Jean being sad at watching this creature “die” even though he’s clearly pure evil and wants to destroy then entire world. Because, girls are emotional you guys! (Please see above for my feelings on this matter. LOL)

Let’s move on, shall we? Awesome! Cause I’m super excited for this next arc. It’s a dumb story, but I have reasons for being excited. Issue #54 starts a new arc that will run for like, three and a half issues, centering around the Living Pharaoh (LP) and it also introduces the one and only, Alex Summers!!!! (*insert happy dance here*!) That’s right, it’s time to meet the baby Summers brother, my loves! Are you as excited as I am? You really should be!

So, first off, just want to mention that as this arc unfolds, we go from Arnold Drake writing and Don Heck taking over on pencils, to Roy Thomas writing with Don Heck’s art, and finally to Roy Thomas writing with Neal Adams doing the artwork. This pair will continue for the next eight issues, and it’s a great pairing. I really like Neal Adam’s art. It’s clean and crisp in a way we haven’t seen yet and it’s really pretty. So, anyway, this whole arc is about a new mutant villain who has named himself the Living Pharaoh. He’s kidnapped Scott’s younger brother Alex, who by the way, Scott has been in touch with, but has told no one about. The entire team is with him to watch Alex graduate from college, all thinking about how Scott never told them he had a brother. Not even Jean! Alex doesn’t appear to have any mutant powers, FYI. The team fights LP and loses, the LP tries to frame Cyclops for his death. Cyke escapes the police and find LP and LP ends up kidnapping him as well, and he takes them to Egypt. The rest of the team follows, and they fight some more. In the fight, Alex suddenly manifests his mutant powers and stops LP! (Here’s my shocked face that Alex is a mutant. LOL. As if a Summers could get through this world without powers or tragedy.) As they try to find someone to turn the captured LP over to, they stumble into his base and there’s more fighting. LP kidnaps Alex AGAIN. SOME MORE. And the team is left trying to find him somewhere in the Egyptian desert. And yes, I know, this recap is very tedious. Trust me, so was the arc. LP goes on and on to Alex about cosmic rays being the source of their powers and that he grows stronger as Alex grows weaker? Don’t ask. It doesn’t make sense to me either. LOL. Anyway, LP drains Alex of his powers and, I kid you not, transforms into a giant stone being and calls himself “The Living Monolith”. I wish I were making this up. But the X-Men eventually defeat him (and by X-Men, I mean Alex. They’re getting their asses handed to them until Alex takes control and breaks out of the machine draining him and uses his powers. This apparently drains LP of all of his powers and he’s no longer a giant stone creature and passes out.) We end with Alex freaking out about not being able to control his new powers. Whew!

So, there’s still like, half an issue left of this arc in #57, but it’s just a wrap up of Alex, not LP, so let’s pause to talk about LP. Because it’s super icky. We’ve talked a tiny bit about representation and politics and such in the past, but, fair warning, we are going to be discussing it more going forward. It’s important to me to talk about how these things evolve and change. That said, back to the current issue at hand, which is that every last one of these “Egyptian” henchmen and LP himself are white men dressed like ancient Egyptians. You see the problem here, right? It’s made even ickier when the Living Pharaoh explains that he thinks he is an ancestor of the ancient pharaohs. And he thinks a very white Alex is too. So, not just a white boy with an Egypt fetish. A white boy who wants to claim status in this non-white culture. We have ourselves a lot of weird, imperialist, white-washing politics going on here. Historically, this isn’t surprising. This is completely on brand with a long history of white-washing Egyptian culture and representation in American media. (For further examples, please see Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, the entire cast of “The Ten Commandments“, and basically the entire cast of “Gods of Egypt” just to name a few) I’m not exaggerating when I say that American media really likes to cast white actors as Egyptian rulers and gods. Like, a LOT. To be honest, I’m not sure if this is worse then some villainous stereotype like we had with the Mandarin in Avengers? They’re obviously both bad choices. Like, if the only representation of non-white characters is villains, that’s obviously shitty. But, white-washing everyone isn’t the answer. (Nor do I give the writers and artists enough credit to think that was their intention when making these villains white.) But either way, it’s super gross to have all of these white superheroes (Avengers and X-Men alike) fighting villains from all sorts of non-white cultures when those cultures don’t get any representation as heroes. There are no Asian superheroes in this era. There are no African superheroes. But we’ve seen villains from all over Asia in Avengers that were gross stereotypes, and now we have Egyptian villains here. Guys, I need some Storm and Sunfire in my life like, right fucking now. So, lets end this rant and keep going so we can get to Giant Size and get to at least some representation in the hero’s line-up!

If it’s not clear from the covers above, this next arc (Issues 57-59) is bringing back those undaunting, ever-returning, amazing X-foes: THE SENTINELS!!!!!! And, as should be clear from the cover of issue #58, we get the first appearance of Alex as Havok as well!! Guys, I’m excited for this arc. Not just for these appearances, but because it’s just a better arc in general than the last one. So lets go!

Issue 57 starts with Lorna, home in NYC, getting kidnapped by a Sentinel!?! And then, before we can question it, we cut back to our X-Men in Egypt. Alex has fled and the Egyptian authorities are on scene of the last battle with LP. LP turns out to be some renowned archeologist, and he blames Alex for the destruction of the ancient ruins he was using as his base (Not wrongly either, as Alex literally razed the entire structure when his powers went off in the last issue!). But Cyke is pissed that these cops are after his brother and he fucking attacks them, because of course he does. **Quick aside here. Do you guys remember my undying love for Scott? Full disclosure: it’s gone. I warned you all that I’m a different person and comic fan than I was five years ago. This will probably be most apparent in this specific shift. You’ll find I no longer love Scott. In fact, I have very little patience for his quick temper or his martyrdom or (spoiler alert!) the absolutely terrible way he treats Jean and other partners in the future. He’s got a lot of toxic traits and he reminds me too much of my ex husband, and it isn’t until MUCH MUCH later on that he starts to redeem himself. So, just be prepared. LOL.** Anyway, the team runs off to find Alex, but it’s for naught because he was hiding in a nearby cave, but he is also captured by a Sentinel. The team tries to contact Lorna so she can turn on Cerebro for them to find Alex, and they discover her apartment in shambles. Iceman freaks out because she’s his girlfriend and he’s worried. So the team splits up. Iceman and Beast head back to the states to find Lorna and the rest of the team continues to search for Alex. When Iceman and Beast arrive at Lorna’s, they’re confronted by two NYPD officers and we learn through the TV that while they’ve been in Egypt, a federal judge has been working with Bolivar Trask’s son to stir up anti-mutant sentiment again and restart the Sentinel program!! And these aren’t his father’s Sentinels. Dear son Larry has improved them. They’re now the purple and pink giants most of us think of when we think of the Sentinels. And they’ve been upgraded with specific attacks meant to counter the X-Men’s powers. (Heat for Iceman, water for fire, etc.) The boys are attacked by a Sentinel and Iceman sacrifices himself so that Beast can get away and contact the rest of the team to warn them. The rest of the team rushes home, but not before Angel throws a fit about being “The Avenging Angel” (we’ll talk about that at the end. It’s part of his back story that’s been happening in the ends of the last few issues) and decides to FLY HOME FROM EGYPT HIMSELF. WITH HIS WINGS. I can’t even with this. Cyke warns him that he’s never flown that far before, that they’re in a hurry, that he’ll be too exhausted to fight, and 100 other reasons this is a terrible fucking idea. But, of course, Angel does it anyway.

Cut to Larry Trask’s base of operations where we learn he has a way to temporarily block mutant powers. We also learn that he has Alex and Lorna there and Alex has agreed to work for Trask as “Havok” in return for Lorna and the other’s safety. Iceman is relieved to see Lorna still alive, but fights with Havok about his deal, calling him a coward. But then Havok takes down a Sentinel single-handed and that basically shuts Iceman up. Alex is POWERFUL you guys. Like, incredibly so! It’s awesome!! And he’s now in a very basic Havok costume: all black with the circles around his head. Anyway, Trask blocks Havok’s powers and we cut to Professor Abdol (the Living Pharaoh!) bitching about the X-Men and mutants to a room of Trask cronies, just to then turn back into LP as Havok is weakened by some device of Trasks and is attacked and carried away by Sentinels. It’s a fun bit of karma carried over from the last arc, and it’s done well. I really appreciate how at this point in the series, Roy Thomas blends these arcs into each other so organically.

Meanwhile, Angel is captured by two Sentinels as he streaks across the ocean, and guess what? It happens right outside of the commercial flight that Scott and Jean are on, so fuck off Warren. You weren’t any faster then them and you were too exhausted to even try to fight off the Sentinels. These boys and their fucking egos. Anyway, we cut to scenes of other mutants being captured by these new and improved Sentinels. We see Mesmero captured, but when the Sentinels try to capture Magneto too (who is with Mesmero) we learn that it’s not really Mags!! It’s a fucking Android!!! And Mesmero had no clue!!! I love it. I love it so much. Of course Magneto isn’t really there. Is he actually really dead? Is he just too cool to actually hang out with Mesmero? Who knows?!? But then Judge Chalmers shows up at the base. He and Larry fight as we see the remaining three X-Men (Marvel Girl and Cyke have met up with Beast) trying to sneak into the base outside. The judge pulls a medallion off Larry’s neck that his father gave him, and suddenly the Sentinels stop obeying him. Guys, turns out little Larry is a fucking mutant (because of course he is!). He is clairvoyant and predicted his mom’s death. That freaked out Bolivar, so he gave him a medallion to block his powers. Then he created the Sentinel program to wipe out mutants because, I guess, he was scared they’d out his son or something? But now that the Sentinels can sense that Larry is a mutant, they refuse to listen to him. They lock him up with Havok, Lorna, and Iceman and prepare to receive other mutants that have been captured so they can kill all of them. We see Banshee (!!!!) for the first time in years, as he’s been captured and tries to overpower everyone in the base. He fails. We also see Sentinels capturing Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad, and Unus, Mastermind, and Blob. Our three remaining X-Men sneak into the base, switch costumes with SW, QS, and Toad to confuse the Sentinels, and then fight their way to the rest of the captured mutants. Between Cyke and Havok, they take out a lot of the Sentinels. And then Cyke convinces the Sentinels that they have to protect humans by ending the source of mutation itself, so the Sentinels all fly away to go try to destroy the sun. For real. It’s so ridiculous, but it works and is HIGHLY entertaining. We end with Havok injured and the team calling a mysterious old friend of Charles’ for help. A friend named Dr. Lykos!!!! (If you don’t know Dr. Lykos, I won’t spoil the surprise, but I’m so fucking excited!!!)

So yeah. That ends the reading for this entry. We still have to talk about the back stories at the ends of these issues, but I first want to say that this reading ended on a major high note for me. You guys, I LOVE the Sentinels. They’re awesome adversaries and, while these original ones in the 60’s are a bit silly, they become absolutely terrifying as the years go on and I can’t wait to see them evolve. It’s going to be lots of fun!! But lets talk about the origin stories in these issues:

First off is the rest of Beast’s backstory. We left off with him captured by El Conquistador and forced to help him to save his parents. Hank has to steal an experimental nuclear reactor. He does no problem, but of course EC lied to him and won’t release him or his parents. Then Angel, Cyke, and Iceman show up to save him and take him back to the mansion. (Yes, I know we haven’t gotten Angel’s backstory yet. The writers are also aware and mention it. Apparently we’re getting them out of order.) Beast joins the X-Men and Chuck ups his game this time and erases the memory of Hanks powers from the ENTIRE FUCKING TOWN. I am so glad he is dead. Like, for real. This man has no concept of consent at all.

Next up is Angel. He’s in boarding school when his wings start to grow. He freaks out and gets himself isolated from the other boys in the dorms so no one knows. Then one night, there’s a fire in the dorms and he flies in and saves everyone, pretending to be an actual angel. This gives him the bug for hero-ing and he rents an apartment on his own and begins fighting crime as “The Avenging Angel” (I told you we’d get it it! Lol). Anyway, Cyke and Iceman show up to recruit him as he’s coming back from stopping some thieves. He still has the vial the thieves stole. Chuck telepathically tells Cyke and Iceman to capture Warren with NO explanation and they fight. Then Chuck jumps into Warren’s head to tell him that the vial he has is going to explode because, I kid you not, his MUTANT BODY activated it. *Sigh* So Warren does the noble thing and flies it up into the upper atmosphere to freeze it (because of course right before this he knocked Iceman out, so he conveniently can’t freeze it). He almost dies, but doesn’t, and agrees to join the team. And this time, Chuck doesn’t have to mind-wipe anyone!! Yay for small victories I guess! Let’s go with that as we jump to Jean, cause it’s not going to be fun.

Up until now, all of our heroes have had multi-installment back stories that involve danger and adventure. But that’s all about to change. Because Jean Grey doesn’t get a backstory. She gets five fucking pages at the end of issue #57. The whole thing is told from her perspective and is entitled “The Female of the Species”, so I’m already seeing red. We’re told on the first page that Stan Lee has brought in a female writer (Linda Fite) for this special “origin”, but if you think that’s going to help, you’re sorely mistaken. What we get is Marvel Girl explaining her powers to us in the most ridiculous ways. We see how her telekinesis helps her make apple pies and do housework, how her levitation helps her escape “boring garden parties” and we end with her telling us that just walking down the street is an adventure because she can stop purse snatchers (without taking any credit for it) and that she can “turn men’s heads without trying” because apparently being appealing to the opposite sex is more important that being a badass superhero. Guys, I’m livid. We get absolutely no explanation of how her powers manifested, how she was originally recruited to join the X-Men, or anything else. We just get, basically, a Good Housewife article with superpowers.

And on that less than stellar note, it’s time to wrap up this EXTREMLY long entry. Please know that, despite all my rage, I do love these comics and these characters. These stories are silly and convoluted, but they’re still a lot of fun. And we’re about to get into an arc that introduces a really fun villain in our next section of reading, so that will be cool to get into. I think you guys will really like him! I know I do. He’s just so over the top and silly, you can’t help but love it! So, hang in there with me my loves. I promise I won’t always be so negative and grouchy with our merry band of mutants. Let’s get excited about what’s to come, and until next time, keep searching my darlings!

Professor X is Dead!!! Let’s Celebrate by Finishing 1968

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello darlings!! Are you ready to cover a decent amount of ground today? I hope so, because we’re celebrating the death of the X-Men’s egotistical mentor by finishing up the rest of 1968. We’re also finishing up our Avengers reading for a little while. So, let’s start there.

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When we last left them, the Avengers were losing members left and right. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have gone to join Magneto, Cap has quit, and now Hercules has also left to return to Olympus. This leaves us with Ant-Man/Goliath, Wasp, and Hawkeye. Since issue 51 & 52 don’t have any of our mutants in them, we’ll gloss over them quickly. Basically, the Collector kidnaps the Avengers, Thor, and Iron Man. They manage to escape but the Collector gets away. Then they get a message from Cap that he is sending the Black Panther (just called Panther at this point) to join the team as Cap’s replacement. In issue 52, Black Panther shows up to join the Avengers only to find them dead. He’s framed for their murders by Grim Reaper. (He’s Wonder Man’s brother and wants revenge on the Avengers for his brother’s death.) Panther escapes from jail, fights Grim Reaper, and then uses his scythe to revive the Avengers who aren’t actually dead, just almost dead. They then welcome Panther to the team and resolve to find Wanda & Pietro.

Not a lot happens in these two stories. Issue 53 crosses over with events that are going on in X-Men, so we’ll cover that as we go through X-Men. It’s also our last issue of Avengers for awhile. We’ll also talk more about that after we discuss the issues. That said, lets jump into X-Men starting with issue #43.

xmen43The issue opens up with Xavier’s funeral. The kids are the only people there besides the priest. Suddenly, Pietro shows up to pay his repects. The X-Men are suspicious since they know he’s working with Magneto now, but he just wanted to say good-bye and then runs off again. The kids return to the mansion to find a secret video message from X that he left in case of his death. It basically tells us nothing new except that he’s be training Jean to “add” telepathy to her abilities. This seems really dumb to me. How could Jean just ADD a totally different power to her mutant abilities? It is seriously blowing my mind, but I’m choosing to just tell myself that by “add” he means, access a subset of her powers that she’s always had but couldn’t control/tap into. That seems to be basically what this gets retconned into later anyway. The important part is that the team still has a telepath.

Meanwhile, at Mag’s island HQ, he and Pietro are fighting because Pietro left to go to the funeral. Pietro explains that he’s still loyal to Magneto, but went to the funeral out of sadness. Wanda is physically healed from her gunshot wound, but she’s still fuzzy mentally and her powers aren’t working. Pietro wonders if they’ve made that right choice, or if the Avengers could better help Wanda, but his hatred of humans keeps him with Mags for now. It’s interesting in this issue how almost uncomfortably close the twins are. In one panel they embrace as Wanda laments being a burden on Pietro and he promises that his place will ALWAYS be at her side. And on the next page he breaks down in tears and lays with his head buried in her lap, her arms around him and him holding her around the waist. (see below). It just strikes me as an embrace of lovers, not siblings. This is something that is going to happen/come up again and again throughout the years. As far as I know, there’s never actually any hint that there’s anything incestuous going on between them in the 616. (The Ultimate universe is a whole other story. One we will not be getting into as it’s a totally separate continuity from what this blog is covering.) But it’s still a little weird and uncomfortable.

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The X-Men decide it’s time to take the fight to Magneto, so Cyke lays a trap. Mags has been attacking and robbing cargo ships in order to get supplies for his island base. The X-Men hide on a ship and then send radio communications saying it holds equipment they think Mags will try to steal. It’s actually a really well laid trap. It’s nice to see Cyke really come into his own as a leader now that X is gone. He’s sure of himself and with good reason. Something that will come up later in X-Men is that Scott’s  ability to strategize and plan on a tactical level is basically on par with Captain America. In other words, it’s awesome. Anyway, they break in and fight Magneto. Quicksilver joins the fray and we get a great moment where he says to Cyke that he’s with Mags, but thinks to himself that he must try to stop the X-Men before Magneto kills them. So, obviously QS is starting to waiver in his loyalties. Anyway, the X-Men fight well, but Mags ends up capturing them.

In issue 44, QS talks Mags out of killing the X-Men, so he locks them up in special trapsxmen44 he’s designed for each of them. Angel manages to break out and Cyke sends him to get the Avengers to help them. He thinks it was too easy to get out, so he doesn’t want to walk into a trap, but also wants to take advantage of Angel being free. Angel takes off, but it held up by fatigue and a storm and ends up spending the entire issue on a secret base in the middle of the ocean fighting and then listening to the life story of some guy named Red Raven. Seriously. It’s dumb. It’s a throw away issue in the middle of a story arc that feels like they were just trying to make sure this timed up with Avengers, which is also dumb because the last two issues of Avengers were throw away issues too.

xmen45In issue 45, Cyke manages to escape his trap as well. It’s amazing!!! Scott is getting so much more powerful and so much more sure of himself. My little Cyclops loving heart is all fluttery!

Anyway, he goes to break the rest of the X-Men out of their traps, but gets into a fight with Quicksilver instead. They have a discussion about Magneto’s dream versus X’s and then fight. Cyke knocks QS unconscious with his optic blasts, and just then the Avengers show up and threaten him! While all this is happening, Mags is watching and is being REALLY REALLY violent and cruel towards Toad. It’s pretty sickening and also pretty important.

Avengers 53 is the final issue of this arc and it’s kind of exactly what you think it’s going toavengers53 be. The Avengers didn’t really trust Angel, but they came anyway. Then they found a listening devise in his feathers so they tie him up and go attack everyone without talking to anyone. Meanwhile, Mags uses the machine he’s been building to make the X-Men fight back. Because Hawkeye and Goliath totally suck always, they refuse to do anything but attack the X-Men. Black Panther is the only one who questions what is happening, but since he doesn’t know the X-Men, he defers to the rest of the Avengers. Suddenly Angel shows up and breaks Mags control of the X-Men and the fight stops. And this is where things get REALLY convoluted. See, Mags planned on Angel escaping and going to the Avengers for help. He planted the listening device knowing the Avengers would find it and then distrust him. But, if that wasn’t silly enough, the Avengers somehow figured all this out and left Angel behind on the plane on purpose to be their ace in the hole. Seriously, what the hell? This is absolutely nuts. Anyway, as the heroes recount what happened, the island begins to blow up. Toad finally snaps and takes off with SW and QS, leaving Mags behind. The Avengers and X-Men leave in the Avenger’s quinjet and Magneto is left to die.

Guys, this whole story arc was pretty awesome until the very end. It is so ridiculous how convoluted it gets. There’s no need for all of it. It’s also yet another story where two groups of heroes fight each other because no one will slow down to talk for 5 minutes. You’re all going to get sick of me complaining about these types of stories because  they happen AL THE TIME.

xmen46But, moving on. After this adventure, the X-Men return to the mansion where Fred Duncan (the FBI agent X was working with) and Foggy Nelson (from Daredevil!) show up. Foggy is there for the reading of X’s will. He, unsurprisingly, leaves everything to the X-Men with Scott as the trustee for the estate. Before they can talk to Duncan about what he wants, Juggernaut magically appears in the basement of the mansion. I know, I’m just as confused as you are! They fight him, but he won’t believe X is dead. The fight eventually leads them to Xavier’s grave. Then, Juggy suddenly disappears right back into the Ruby cosmos he was in to start with. It’s never really explained how he showed up or left again, but everyone seems to think X had something to do with it before he died. All that really matters is this was just an exercise to show us how much more powerful the kids have gotten since the last time they fought Juggy. They’ve been getting more and more powerful recently, but nothing puts that on display better then having them fight a villain they haven’t fought in a long time and who is virtually indestructible. It’s a bit of a waste of Juggernaut, but it’s effective.

Afterwards, Duncan tells them that he’s there to insist the X-Men disband and spread across the country. Without X there, the FBI thinks the kids are more at risk together and if they’re spread out, they can respond to threats more quickly. They aren’t happy, but Scott insists they do as Duncan asks. This split up means the next few issues focus on just a couple of characters at a time. It’s actually a lot of fun to see the kids interact outside of the school setting. They’re not really kids anymore. They’re adults and that becomes clear here. They’re all also more sure of themselves, their powers, and their relationships with each other. It makes these next few issues easier to read than earlier Silver Age stuff, and also allows them and the reader to move on from Xavier’s death.

These issues also introduce us to a new writer. Roy Thomas has been gone for a few issues now, but we’ve mostly had fill-in writers. Now we have Arnold Drake writing for awhile going forward. I like his writing a lot. Under him, all five heroes have much more personality and control of their powers. Even Jean seems more like a whole person with confidence and capability than she ever has before. We’ll see that more and more with each passing issue.

Issue 47 is focused on Hank & Bobby. They’re taking Vera and Zelda out before they get xmen47their instructions on where to relocate. They go to the theater to see a guy called the Maha Yogi. Once there, the guys realize that it’s actually Warlock/Merlin who kidnapped Jean a few years ago. He’s trying to hypnotize the entire audience. The boys fight him and stop his plans, but not without upsetting the girls for disappearing yet again. It’s a nice reminder that Hank and Bobby have lives outside of the school and a great look at their awesome friendship. They fight well together and have adorable banter.

xmen48Issue 48 focuses on Jean and Scott. They’re together in NYC. She’s started modeling and Scott is working at a radio station. They are adorable and lovey. Scott shows up at Jean’s swimsuit photo shoot to threaten the photographer for asking her out, but then he gets hit on by all the other models which makes Jeannie all jealous. It’s cute in a kinda sexist 1960’s kind of way. (See that? That’s me focusing on the silver lining instead of the shitty misogyny of the Silver Age…I know, you’re impressed with my restraint.) Anyway, some robots try to steal some expensive radio equipment being delivered to Scott’s radio station, so Marvel Girl and Cyke jump into action. They battle the robots and then track them to their HQ where they take out all the others and fight their leader, Quasimodo. He escapes, leaving the heroes to die as the underground base floods with water, but because Jean is a capable adult now, she rescues them with her telekinesis easily.

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Issue 49-51 start with Warren returning to the school for a little bit of closure. While he’s there cerebro goes off, so he contacts Jean telepathically. She and Scott are still living in NYC, but Hank & Bobby have been relocated to Cali. Jean links them all together and they decide to meet up at Hank & Bobby’s to go after this threat. That threat is Mesmero and a bunch of mutant slaves who are trying to activate and then control all the latent mutants in the world in order to carry out Magneto’s dream of mutant supremecy. One of these latent mutants is the one and only Lorna Dane, who Bobby saves from brainwashing and takes back to his apartment. The X-Men go to stop Mesmero while Iceman stays behind to protect Lorna. They’re captured and brought to another base in the desert. Here,Cyke Iceman is held captive while Mesmero activates Lorna’s latent mutant powers and they all worship her as their queen. Turns out she’s Magneto’s daughter and has the same powers as him, so they think she will lead their fight in his absence. Just then Mags shows up because he’s apparently not dead, and the X-Men fight him. Bobby is PISSED about all of this and clearly in love with Lorna. The fight turns against the X-Men and Iceman is wipped out from freezing the entire place. Cyke is grabbed and they force a helmet on him that is meant to stop his optic blasts. And this is where we get my absolute favorite moment of this arc. Cyke busts the hell out of the helmet in the most spectacular fashion. Guys, he’s getting REALLY powerful. It’s awesome!!!

Mags attacks them all and MG & Cyke are left trying to defend the rest of the team who is totally battered at this point. And we get yet another awesome Cyclops moment. As Mags fights them both, and Cyke can feel himself losing, he begins to taunt Magneto anyway and we get to see what he’s saying and thinking at the same time, letting us know just how much of a bad ass he’s being right now. While he thinks that this strain is unbearable even with Mag’s power split between Cyke and MG, what he says is this: “Is that the BEST you can do, Magneto? You must be losing your grip in your old age! Come on–Make it interesting!”

As the team looks like they’re done for, Cyke makes one last desperate play. He brings the ceiling down on Magneto, allowing them to escape in the chaos that follows. But they’re forced to leave Lorna behind. This is not okay with Bobby, and he and Scott almost come to blows about it back at the apartment. Jean tries to stop the fight but Bobby storms out. Scott lets him go saying Bobby needs to cool down and that he has a plan to stop Mags and Mesmero. Cut to the desert base where a giant figure calling himself Erik the Red is insisting on challenging Magneto.

Overall, I have to say that I absolutely loved this arc. Arnold Drake’s writing here is a breath of fresh air. And starting in issue 50, we also get a new artist. And it’s one of my favorite artists…Jim Steranko. Steranko’s art is exquisite, and a huge change from the sort of “house style” that Roth and Heck use. xmen50His cover of Issue 50 is one of my favorites ever! The new art and writing combine here to make this feel almost like a totally different title in a really good way. This team is a functioning, competent, adult team of superheroes now. They have drama and romance and they’re starting to feel less like a group of students and more like an actual family. To me, that’s how X-Men should feel. They have sooooo much drama between themselves over the years, but no matter what they have each other’s backs because they’re family. This arc also makes Scott and Jean’s relationship actually feel like a relationship. They care about each other outwardly now. They bicker and get jealous, hold and protect each  other in battles. Scott refers to Jean as Jeannie multiple times. It’s wonderful. The other wonderful part of it is that they are now being written as equals. We don’t see Scott refusing to let Jean fight out of fear for her safety. He trusts her abilities and recognizes her integral part on this team. And she’s getting stronger and stronger right along with the guys. I love it sooo much!! I’m excited to see how she progresses as we close out the ’60’s.

The final thing to discuss is the “Secret Origins of the X-Men” segments at the end of all the issues. We’ve seen Scotts origins already. Now we get to see Bobby’s. He’s on a date when they’re jumped by some bullies from school. He uses his powers to save his date, but the town goes crazy and he’s arrested. Scott shows up to save him, but Bobby doesn’ want to go so they fight. While they fight, a honest to god lynch mob follows and tries to catch them both. They end up catching the boys and are about to try to hang them when X finally shows up and saves them both. The Drakes consent to Bobby going to Xavier’s school, but then he erases their memories of Bobby’s powers. Ok. That is SOOO messed up. It’s bad enough when he does that to villains, but to do it to the Drakes? What is the point? Gah, I hate that plot point. But, moving on… we then get the beginning of Beast’s origin. His dad was exposed to radiation at work, which is where his mutation comes from. He was super smart and a football star in high school. He’s captured by El Conquistador who insists Hank help him with some unknown mission or he’ll kill Hank’s parents. And that’s where we leave off in issue #51.

We also get a closer explanation of Scott, Bobby, and Hanks powers in some of the issues. We learn that Scott’s optic blasts are converted solar energy that his eyes are absorbing and converting all the time. But that’s why he can run out and need to recharge. They are sheer force, no heat. He also has buttons on his gloves to lift his visor so he doesn’t always have to use the one on his temple. Bobby’s powers work by pulling moisture from the air. His body has adjusted to the colder temps so he prefers cold climates, but can get enough moisture from a cactus to survive in the desert if needed. Beast’s mutations are his hands and feet as well as his muscular frame and reflexes. These allow him to climb almost anything, absorb the impact from high falls, and use his feet as basically another set of hands. And that about covers the Origin sections of these issues.

We are now done with all of 1968! Only one year left in the 60’s guys. I’m sooooo happy. And only a few more years left until we get to Giant Size and Claremont. I’m just glad that, at least for the time being, I have Arnold Drake to make this more then bearable. We’re also done with Avengers for a little while. With Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver off the team, there’s nothing to tie it to the X-universe at this point. When this changes, I’ll add it back into the reading and give you guys a REALLY brief rundown of anything important we missed while we were away. And with that said, it’s time for this seemingly endless post to come to a close. Until next time my dears, keep searching…

 

This is Getting Silly…(Or, Bring on Factor Three Already)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my dears!!

I’m back already! It felt so good to finally get back in the blogging saddle yesterday that I couldn’t help but post again today! I’m sure you won’t mind!

Today we’re going to talk about the 4 issues from August and September of 1967. AKA, Avengers 43 & 44 and The X-Men 35 & 36. Since I read the monthly titles in alphabetical order, let’s talk about them that way too. Which means….

Avengers! 43 & 44 are a two issue arc centered around Hawkeye’s attempts to rescue avengers43Natasha from the generic Asian communists that have her prisoner. It’s fun and silly, so let’s dive in. We open up with Cap & Hawk coming back from some recon mission and walking into Quicksilver freaking FLYING around the Mansion. That’s right. He’s flying. It’s AMAZING. Basically, Quicksilver has figured out that if he vibrates his legs at super speeds, he can levitate himself and “fly” for short distances. Guys, it’s so great to see our resident mutants (the whole reason we’re reading through Avengers for this enormous project) growing in their powers. This is one of the things I love about Quicksilver (and admittedly, also The Flash over at DC) and his powers. There are so many creative ways to use super speed other then just running really fast. It’s nice to see Roy Thomas exploring those other uses!

So…back to the story. Herc is being Herc, and thus fighting with everyone. Cap picks a fight with him to keep him from hurting anyone else, and then easily avoids getting trampled by out maneuvering Herc. This gains him Hercules’ respect, so now Herc is calmed. While all that is going on, a lawyer shows up to tell Jan that since she’s now 23, she can access her inheritance of more then $3 million! In the commotion of her celebrations, no one notices that Hawkeye has slipped out to follow the lead he and Cap got by himself. Hawkeye goes to a sketchy bar to find out where Natasha’s being held. But, because he’s Hawkeye, he can’t get in and our of there without getting in a fight. Seriously. He returns back to the mansion to find everyone asleep but Hercules. Herc is itching for adventure, so Hawkeye invites him to come help rescue Natasha. The unlikely duo heads out.

Meanwhile, at the secret, non-descript communist base where Black Widow is being held, we see that Colonel Ling* is showing his precious Psychotron to “Comrade General”, a generic Soviet general who is overseeing Ling’s work. He also shows the General his latest creation: Red Guardian. For those of you at home, Red Guardian is basically Commie Cap. He has all the same abilities as Captain America, but he wears red and hates capitalism.

So, Commie Cap gives the General a demonstration of his abilities, and then he and the General forget all about Ling’s Psychotron and decide what they really need to do is lure Captain America to their top secret base full of top secret military research so that Red Guardian can beat him up. When even Colonel Ling is telling you that’s a bad plan, you know it’s a bad plan. These guys are seriously stupid! But, their minds are made up and now they just need a way to lure Cap there. Enter our dynamic duo of Herc and Hawk…

Commie Cap quickly knocks Hawk out, and then tricks Herc into the Psychotron. Herc is kept busy in there battling hallucinations of hydras while Hawkeye is locked up in a glass tube right next to Natasha. When he wakes up, he (and Natasha) discover that Commie Cap is…Natasha’s husband?!?

For the end of the issue we cut back to Avenger’s HQ in New York, where Cap and the rest of the Avengers are gearing up to go rescue our intrepid rescuers and Natasha.

Before we move onto issue 44, can we just pause for a second? Guys, Quicksilver can fly!!!! I’m still not over that. It’s so freaking cool. It’s like Roy Thomas woke up the morning he wrote this issue and said, “You know, Quicksilver is actually a WAY cooler character then we’ve been giving him credit for!” and I couldn’t be happier. Also, since we talk a lot about power sets for out mutants, I think we should also talk about powers for our non-mutant Avengers since they’re such an important part of our reading. In the beginning of this issue, Cap thinks to himself that Herc probably doesn’t like being challenged by him because he has no super powers. But then, later in the issue when Commie Cap is bragging to Hawkeye and Black Widow about how he’s going to wipe the floor with original recipe Cap, he mentions that Caps powers were given to him by science (Super Soldier serum for those at home). So, I’m a bit confused as to what Cap’s story is at this point. I know his origins are that he was a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who volunteers for the Super Soldier program and is the sole success story. I thought (and it’s cannon much later on) that the serum gives him enhanced agility and strength. Like, not just enhanced from his former self, but like, super strength and agility. But in these early Avengers comics, they seem to imply Cap has no actual powers; he’s just a really well-trained fighter. We’ll have to see how that takes shape as we go forward.

So, issue 44: The Avengers find the top secret communist base in Asia very easily and get out of their Aero-car to discover it was a trap. They fight their way through all the bad guys on the base and Wanda and Jan are both given the chance to fight as equals with the guys for the first time in awhile. Wanda’s hex powers seem to not only be back up and running, but she seems to have better control of them then before. It’s nice to see her sure of her powers and not second guessing herself.

While they’re fighting outside, inside the General is insisting that Natasha be given a lie-detector to make sure she’s really a traitor because she’s still insisting she’s been on the communist side all along. Tash beats the lie detector because, of course she does. She freaking Black Widow. There was never any doubt she would be able to pass a lie detector. Meanwhile, Cap has made his way inside to find his fellow Avengers and instead finds his commie counterpart. They fight, and are fairly evenly matched. A quick cut to outside shows us that our other Avengers seem done for when the communists unveil a giant machine thing to kill them. Goliath is too worn out from the prior fighting to be able to stop it. But then, our favorite speedy mutant saves the day! He runs in circles around their foe so fast that it creates basically a mini hurricane that tears the machine apart! And, in another cut scene, we see that Hawkeye as mysteriously been freed from his glass tube (most likely by Black Widow) and goes to join Cap’s fight. That fight seems to be at a stalemate, but then Colonel Ling grows impatient and electrocutes Cap. Commie Cap is SOOO mad guys. He wants to beat his foe fair and square, but since Ling is the only communist with a brain in this arc, he insists they don’t have to play fair, and that they need to stop worrying about beating up the star-spangled Avenger and start focusing on their plan for world domination.

But at just that moment, Natasha reveals herself by trying to climb up the wall to destroy the Psychotron, which was the real purpose of her mission from SHIELD. Colonel Ling takes aim at her and tries to shoot her down, but Alexi (Red Guardian) leaps in front of the shot to save her. As Alexi falls, Ling aims at Widow again, only to be stopped by Hawkeye this time. Widow succeeds in destroying the Psychotron, but Ling’s second shot still hits her and she falls. Hawkeye catches the mortally wounded Widow just as Hercules FINALLY busts out of the stupid, and now malfunctioning Psychotron. The base is on fire, so Herc scoops up the unconscious Cap and they head for the hole Herc bust in the ceiling. The other Avengers pull them to safety, but Herc wants to go back for the commies, as he doesn’t think they deserve to die in the fire. But before he can, Colonel Ling loses what little sense he had this whole time and attempts to shoot the Avengers down. Commie Cap stops him, as this goes against his moral code of combat, and instead Ling’s shot causes the base to erupt in lava (it’s apparently on top of a dormant volcano. Don’t ask. LOL.)

The Avengers rush the wounded Natasha to the nearest hospital (in Hawaii) where she survives her surgery and tells the Avengers that Alexi, her husband, was a test pilot for the Soviets. She was told he died in a training accident, and was then recruited to become the Black Widow to honor his sacrifice. She had no idea he was actually being trained to be Red Guardian! Whew!! That was exhausting!

And, now that I’ve caught my breath (and rested my fingers!) let’s move onto X-Men! xmen35Issue 35 starts with Banshee (!!!) flying over Eastern Europe looking for Factor Three’s secret base. He seems to find it in the mountains, but he’s attacked by a mechanical spider and barely gets away. He makes it back to his base and sends a message to the X-Men telling them to beware of the spider, but can’t get anything else transmitted before he passes out and is kidnapped by F3!

Cut to Westchester where the kids are frantically trying to find any info about F3’s whereabouts so they can find Charles. They receive Banshee’s cryptic message about the spider just as Cerebro alerts them to the presence of a mutant nearby. They decide it must be evil mutants from F3, and the guys go to check it out, leaving Jean behind to keep tying to pinpoint the Prof’s location.

At the same time, we see Peter Parker riding his motorbike around Westchester Co. He stops at a stream with an old mill nearby to check it out, and suddenly sees a flying egg-shaped pod landing right where he is. He ducks into the mill to become Spider-Man and fights the mechanical spider that climbs out of the egg. Of course, this spider is what has set Cerebro off, and of course, Spider-Man defeats it before the X-Men arrive. And OF COURSE the thing self-destructs, leaving not trace it was ever there. Do you see where this is going? No? It’s telegraphed pretty openly here. Banshee told them to beware of the spider, so OF COURSE that MUST mean Spider-Man since he happens to be where Cerebro led them! And OF COURSE our boys are just going to attack him without any explanation or even asking him why he’s there. It’s soooooooo silly. I hate these story lines. Seriously, it’s like, fate has to set it all up perfectly, and everyone has to act like brainless idiots just so this plot can play out. And it really has nothing to do with finding F3 or Professor X. It’s just an excuse to have the X-Men battle Spider-Man. It’s annoying that they spent a couple REALLY GOOD issues setting up this kidnapping, just to give us useless stories before we can finish the F3 storyline. (SPOILER ALERT! I’m going to have an even bigger problem with the next issue!)

Anyway, while the boys are out being dumb, Jean is busy being the only useful person in the issue. She’s found a note in the Professor’s files about the transmitter he put in Banshee’s headband so they could contact him using Cerebro. She tries to do this and finds Banshee unresponsive. She also realizes that Cerebro stopped registering a mutant almost right away after the boys left. (Probably around the same time Spider-Men succeeded in destroying the mechanical spider, funnily enough!)She sends Cyclops a message letting him know this and he FINALLY comes to his senses and stops the fighting long enough to ask Spider-Man what he’s doing there. SM tells them about the mechanical spider and they realize this is what set Cerebro off and apologize for attacking SM. When they arrive back at the school, Jean tells them about the tracking in Banshee’s headband and that she’s used it to find his location! You go, Jeanie!!! Now they have a destination! Hurray! Progress! We’re finally going to move forward with this story-line! Oh, wait…xmen36

It’s issue 36, which I am entitling: “Dumb plot contrivance to have the kids fight another D-list bad guy with Daddy issues instead of rescuing their mentor!”

That’s right my loves! Remember our mutant superheroes? The ones that live on a giant estate in Westchester County, drive a Rolls Royce, and have their own jet? Well, they apparently have NO MONEY to buy plane tickets to Eastern Europe. I know what you’re thinking! Surely they can just take their jet? But alas, it’s out of gas and apparently the Professor doesn’t think ahead enough to have fuel on-hand in their hanger. What’s that you say? Surely the Professor MUST have some emergency cash lying around the school somewhere? Apparently not. Wait? What? Surely rich-boy Warren Worthington III can just borrow the money from his parents? Sorry guys! They’re on a cruise!

So, now our teenagers are forced to find another way to get the money. They try the welfare office, but luckily the lady there has a brain and doesn’t approve their loan. Next, they try to get construction jobs, but they’re not union, so that’s a no-go. Finally, Bobby and Hank decide to preform tricks as Iceman and Beast in Washington Square Park for loose change. (I wish I were kidding). While they’re there, a nobody of a villain named Mekano shows up. He says that Iceman and Beast are helping him by drawing the crowd so that they can all watch him destroy the new library. (for real) So, he begins to destroy it. The cops think our mutants are in on it, so they handcuff Iceman to a pole and try to arrest the rest of the X-Men. Marvel Girl disarms them and moves them to safety and then disappears for the rest of the fight because, not only are the kids magically penniless, but they’ve also reverted to treating her like a precious flower, so Cyclops orders her  to stay outside.

Beast, Angel, and Cyke fight Mekano, but he escapes out the window and attempts to jump to the roof of a neighboring building. He misses and falls! Lucky for him our boys are chauvinists this month! If they weren’t, Marvel Girl might not have been sitting around outside waiting to catch him!! Just as MG lets him down, the cops close in to arrest them all. But because this whole issue is one plot contrivance after another, the man who built the library shows up just then and insists on asking Mekano to explain his reasoning. Turns out Mekano is this guy’s son, and all of this was just his way of acting on his deep-seeded Daddy issues because his dad didn’t love him enough or something. So, Daddy Mekano refuses to press any charges, and then wants to give our youngsters a reward for saving his son from falling to his death. Yay! Now they have the money for their plane tickets!! UGH! This sucks. But, they thank him for the money and then head off to the airport. While they’re there, we learn that F3 is watching their every move, even when they’re traveling under their civilian identities! (finally, a plot point that has actual ramifications to our F3 arc!!)

A few power-related notes from this issue. Apparently Bobby’s back to being able to use up his ice powers (or at least, he is when the writers need him to stay handcuffed and need an excuse as to why he doesn’t just freeze the cuffs and shatter them…) Also, apparently Cyke can use his optic blasts to “catch” heavy machinery in mid-air and lower it, unharmed, to the ground? I call bullshit on that one. Those optic blasts have been nothing but forces of destruction from day one. Why can they suddenly be used in this way? If that were the case, then every time in the past that Cyke accidently hit one of his teammates with his optic blasts and hurt them was either a plot devise or Scott being a huge dick.

Ok. I’m done for today. As I’m sure you noticed, I was a little annoyed with our X-Men this time around. Hopefully that will change in the next issue since it seems like they’re finally going to rescue Professor X and Banshee now! (I hope!!) So, until next time my loves, do what our X-Men should have been doing these two issues and keep searching!!

*In my last post, I mistakenly referred to Colonel Ling as a General. This issue makes it fairly clear that Ling is under the control of the Soviets, and thus not at the rank of a General.

Why Stan Lee is Basically George Lucas!

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

I’m back! With most of 1967 finished now! I’m really starting to get into the reading more now, and am enjoying some of the stories more then before.  I really think I just needed to get acclimated to the ’60’s style of writing. Or,  I just needed to get to a point that Roy Thomas was writing everything. LOL.

In all honesty, I think that has a lot to do with my increased enjoyment. My husband, C, put it perfectly when I was trying to explain why I prefer Thomas’s writing to Stan Lee’s. He said that Stan Lee is a lot like George Lucas. He’s AMAZING at world-building, big idea stuff. But when it comes to the details and the human relationships, he’s better when he has help. I think C nailed it. Stan and Jack Kirby created an amazing world with amazing characters within the Marvel 616. But when it comes to writing the day-to-day stories of those characters, Stan is better as an editor and not the writer.

With that said, let’s talk Avengers. I’ve now read through Avengers 42, but we’re only going to talk about Avengers #39 & 40 today. Like I said earlier, I’ve read most of the way through 1967, and I think we need to break it up over multiple posts! So…here we go!

avengers39In issue 39, the Avengers are captured by the Mad Thinker and his Triumvirate of Terror (Hammerhead, Pile Driver, and Thunder Boot). Cap is still gone, and everyone thinks Black Widow is a traitor. (We knows she’s not, obvi! But poor Hawkeye isn’t too sure.) Anyway, Mad Thinker succeeds in capturing all the Avengers and is holding them prisoner in Avengers Mansion. Just when it looks like he’s won, Hercules returns from a night on the town and saves the day. Guys, I love Hercules. He’s so powerful, and so full of himself. It’s like having Thor around, but with more self-importance. Where 60’s Thor can sometimes pull his punches literally and figuratively when dealing with mortals, Herc is always Herc. He goes full boar always, demolishing anything in his way (including Goliath’s training equipment) and constantly complaining that he’s not being challenged by the mortals and super-villains he fights. It’s what I imagine hanging out with Kayne West is like. Dude is totally in love with himself, but he’s so good, you kind of can’t fault him.

Another thing I love is the attention to continuity and the timelines paid in the early years. Right now, in Tales of Suspense, Cap is off chasing a lead that may take him to Bucky, and is undercover pretending to work with Red Skull. So, he’s missing from the Avenger’s adventures and they make mention of his exploits. It’s nice. It seems that so often with current comics, the timelines don’t add up, or characters are everywhere at once when stories are supposed to be taking place simultaneously. Wolverine, for example, spent years on the X-Men or Uncanny X-Force, but was also an Avenger, and had a least one current continuity solo series going on. No way he’s in all those places at once. It gets confusing…

I know it’s harder to do now that there are so many monthly on-goings. I get it. But it’s refreshing to read this older stuff and have the characters only on one adventure at a time. It grounds the 616 in a bit more reality. And that’s the end of my little rant.

xmen31Let’s talk about X-Men 31, shall we? Here, the X-Men battle Cobalt Man, and we get to see a bit more of our teenagers’ lives outside of their costumes. The Professor tries to play match-maker with Scott and Jean (You go, Chuck!!) by asking Scott to take some library books back to Jean at school on the boy’s night off. Warren offers to drive him (because, you know, dumb love triangle. GRR). Bobby and Hank head to the Village to see their girlfriends.

Meanwhile, Jean is on a date of sorts with Ted. They’ve met up with his older brother Ralph. Ralph is a scientist who is trying to create armor like Iron Man’s to give to the government. The three of them meet up with Scott and Warren for dinner, and then they go to Ralph’s labs. Warren doesn’t go, clearly seeing how into each other Scott and Jean are, and decides to go out on his own. (*insert happy dance here*)

While at the labs, Ralph, who has a concussion, tries on his suit for Ted and he loses it a bit. He goes crazy, and decides to go after Iron Man. Scott and Jean rush into action, and the Prof telepathically sends the other three to help them. They manage to stop Ralph before his suit blows up from radiation, and he comes to with no memory of what happened after he hit his head. But, in the last panel, Ted hints to Marvel Girl that he may know she’s really Jean Grey!

We’ll see how that revelation plays out going forward, especially if Ted begins to see Scott as a threat for Jean’s affections (which he should!) It’s a lot of fun to see Cyke and Marvel Girl fight together. We get to see the beginning of the spark these two grow to have on the battle field. They become a seamless pair in many ways, and this seems like a nice beginning. It’s also about time that Warren moved on from Jean, and it’s nice to see that happening. He meets up with his old friend Candy in this issue, and they seem to hit it off right away.

So, with that thought reassuring my Cyclops-loving heart, let’s head back over to NYC and Avengers Mansion, shall we? Avengers 40!  Cap is still gone, “working” with Red Skull. Widow is still undercover in the “Far avengers40East”. Wanda is bed-ridden. (The Mad Thinker caused her hex power to kind of back-fire on her last issue, and it’s messed her up a bit.) The Avengers receive a message from Cap that they need to try to go find the Cosmic Cube (for those who’ve seen the Marvel movies, this is what they call the Tesseract in the MCU). They head off towards the coordinates Cap left them, but meanwhile, Namor is headed there too. It seems there have been submarines in his neck of the ocean, and he’s not happy about it. He’s headed to the naval base to destroy all the subs. When the Avengers (plus Hercules) arrive, they battle Namor thinking he’s after the cube as well. Namor manages to get his hands on the cube, and is winning the battle, when his pride kicks in. He wants to fight Hercules on even terms to prove he’s better. During the battle, the Wasp manages to get him to drop the Cosmic Cube, but it falls into a crack in the ocean floor before anyone can get it. It lands near the Earth’s core, where it is discovered by Mole Man, who just as quickly tosses it away, not realizing what it is!!

This was a fun issue. I always love seeing Namor, and it’s fun to watch he and Hercules battle. They’re basically evenly matched strength-wise, and Namor’s ego could give Herc’s a run for it’s money. This is also the last issue in this trade, so we’ll be moving on next post!

X-Men #32 is the beginning of a two-issue arc, so we’ll talk about that next time. Just know, I’m about to get really excited about the return of a certain giant bad guy!

So, until next time, my lovelies…keep searching!

More Roy Thomas is Always A Good Thing…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello, my loves! I’m back already! I hope you all don’t get sick of me!

Anyway, I was able to do lots of reading over the last two days, so we have 6 more issues to talk about today. I’ve read The X-Men #28-30 and Avengers #36-38, which takes us through January, February, and March of 1967. At this pace, I may just reach my reading goal!

Let’s start with Avengers # 36 & 37. This first thing of note here, is that Roy Thomas is now writing the Avengers too! He actually took over in issue #35, avengers36but I didn’t notice. It was the middle of an arc, so I didn’t even think to look to see if the writer had changed. For those of you keeping track, Roy is now writing both Avengers and The X-Men. This makes me very happy! While I love Stan Lee’s ideas and vision, I prefer Roy’s writing style. His women are a little less “damsel in distress” and a little more competent and sure of themselves. He’s also just slightly less heavy-handed when it comes to having characters describe exactly what’s happening to them. (I really can’t wait to be out of that phase completely, but we’ve got a while to go before then, so I’ll take what I can get!)

Anyway, in this arc the Avengers are fighting a super computer controlled by an alien named IXAR. He lands his spaceship in Eastern Europe, kidnaps Wanda and Pietro, who are still there regaining their powers, and then lures the rest of the Avengers and Black Widow there to try and steal all of their powers. He wants to use them to power his Ultroids (Basically just fancy, super strong androids) in the war he’s fighting in space. There’s lots of fun fighting, and then Hawkeye and Black Widow save the day when Hawk figures out that the human hostage the computer has is actually IXAR, not a hostage, and then Black Widow threatens to kill him if he doesn’t release the Avengers and go back to space.

This story was kind of fun. It was nice to see Hawkeye get to save everyone for once. He’s also trying to get the Avengers to let Black Widow join. He mentions it in the beginning of the arc before they’re lured into IXAR’s trap and for some reason, Goliath is violently (*here’s my shocked face*) opposed to it. He doesn’t have time to give his reasoning for not wanting Widow on the team, but he does try to throw his weight around both metaphorically and literally when he reminds everyone he’s a founding member of the Avengers, and then threatens Hawkeye. Hank REALLY needs to turn it down a few notches. It’s bad when I’m actually siding with Hawkeye!

Dianna Agron has the BEST angry face!

I should mention that none of the Avengers know that Black Widow threatened to kill IXAR except Hawkeye. Cap specifically tells IXAR that they have a code not to harm or kill humans. But since Widow isn’t actually an Avenger, she makes the threat while everyone but Hawk is unconscious and means it so IXAR lets them go. Hawkeye doesn’t tell any of the other Avengers this, because he’s worried they won’t let her into the group if they know.

Also, I’m so happy to have our wayward mutant siblings back on the team. I didn’t realize just how much I missed them until they were back! I love Pietro and Wanda so much!

And speaking of mutants…let’s hop on over to Westchester and check in on the X-Men, shall we?

xmen28In The X-Men #28 we meet Banshee and Ogre. They are working for the mysterious Factor Three to try and kidnap Xavier. Banshee is awesome and the way Werner Roth draws him when he’s using his powers is amazing! I wish every artist drew him that way!

banshee2

Seriously, look at that art!!

Anyway, Banshee and Ogre attack the X-Men. The X-Men manage to capture Banshee and save him from Ogre and Factor Three; it turns out they were controlling him and he’s actually good! (We’ll be seeing more of my favorite Irishman once we get to the ’70’s! <3)

Old Costumes

Old costumes on top, Jean’s new designs on the bottom

This story introduces Factor Three, who will be a recurring theme for a bit. We don’t see this mysterious villain, or learn what the motive is. What we do see, is the new costumes Jean made for the team last issue, that I totally neglected to mention. They’re REALLY similar to the old ones, just with a bit more blue, red belts, and a mask for Marvel Girl instead of a cowl. Take a look:

Also, for now, Mimic is still the leader of the team, and Scott STILL hasn’t told Jean how he feels. Mimic is aggressive, and head-strong, and arrogant. It’s not going to end well friends. He’s basically the antithesis of my Scotty, so it should go without saying that I can’t stand him! And speaking of my dear Scott, let’s get to issue #29, where he gets to let loose a bit!

In issue #29 the youngsters fight the Super Adaptoid. He’s an android that was created to xmen28destroy Captain America. He is 10 feet tall and has the powers of Cap, Goliath, Hawkeye, and Wasp. He fought the Avengers before, and has now taken to hiding out in a cave in Westchester apparently. But an avalanche disturbs him, and he decides to find beings to assimilate into adaptoids like him so he can rule the world. He wants to assimilate the X-Men, but they’re unwilling, so he decides to destroy them instead. They fight, Mimic decides to be assimilated so he can keep his powers forever, changes his mind at the last minute, and then sacrifices his powers (and almost his life) to stop Super Adaptoid.

Now, the avalanche that brings the android out of hiding is started by Scott (who is looking very handsome in a turtleneck sweater instead of his normal leisure suit, BTW!). The X-Men are ice skating on a pond near the school, and Scott wanders away into the woods to be alone. He feels like he may be getting more control of his optic blasts, and wants to test his theory. Turns out, he doesn’t really have too much control. He loses his temper and REALLY lets loose, causing an avalanche. It’s awesome. I love it when Scott really lets go like that. Sometimes it’s easy to forget just HOW powerful (and dangerous) he can be when he wants to. It makes a girl’s heart get all fluttery!

Anyway…where were we? Oh yeah! So, before the adaptoid attacked, Xavier had kicked Mimic out of the X-Men because he’s such a dick no one likes him he’s a bad leader and won’t listen to Charles. But Mimic comes back to hear the Super Adaptoid’s offer of assimilation and wants to join him so he doesn’t lose the X-Men’s powers when he leaves. Scott talks him out of it, and at the last second Mimic uses the Profs telepathy to convince the SA to try and take his powers. Since Mimic has “artificial” powers, it short-circuits the android and Mimic and they both lose their abilities to replicate others powers. They begin to fall to their deaths (they’ve both lost their borrowed wings) but Angel swoops in and saves Mimic. The SA manages to land in the water and survive, vowing to continue his quest for world domination. So, there’s the Mimic story line wrapped up in a nice little bow! Thank God!! Now that he’s gone…let’s head back over to Avenger’s HQ!avengers38

Avengers #38 brings us an old foe and a new friend. And lots and lots of new story threads. In this issue, Enchantress tricks Hercules into attacking the Avengers for her so she can get revenge for the time they stopped her and Power Man from framing them. They attack the Avengers at HQ, and the Avengers eventually succeed in lifting the spell that Enchantress put on Hercules. She flees, but Zeus banishes Herc to earth for a year for disobeying a direct order. So, Herc is going to be hanging out at HQ in Thor’s old room for awhile it seems.

Also in this issue, Hawkeye and Goliath actually come to blows over Hawkeye wanting Black Widow to join the Avengers. Cap and Quicksilver have to break the two of them up. Personally, I was hoping Hawk would get off at least a couple blast arrows before the fight stopped, but no dice.

Black Widow never shows for the meeting to discuss her membership, and the Avengers head out for dinner, leaving Cap behind on watch duty. When they return, Cap is gone with no explanation, (The readers get an explanation that he’s taken off following a lead about his old WWII partner, Bucky.) which causes even more tension between Goliath and Hawk because Goliath says they can’t vote on Widow without Cap. It also causes issues between Goliath and Wasp, because, like usual, Hank is being an ass to Janet because he’s mad about something that’s totally out of her control. This causes both Hawkeye and Janet to quit the Avengers and leave. They go to dinner together, and then don’t respond right away when Goliath sends a distress signal to come help them battle Herc. It’s interesting to note that, even though neither of them are in costume, and even though Hawkeye refers to her as Janet the whole time, Jan calls him Hawkeye. So, for those keeping track, we STILL haven’t learned Hawkeye’s real name! And this is where I like Roy Thomas’s writing better than Stan Lee’s. Roy gives Janet a back-bone. His version of Janet stands up to Hank, and even walks out on him when he’s being a dick. She’s not his doormat.

The final thread being spun in this issue is centered around Black Widow. She’s late showing up at Avengers HQ because she’s kidnapped by Nick Fury! He’s sending her to the “Far East” to do a secret mission for him. We aren’t told it’s details, and she’s forbidden from telling Hawk or the rest of the Avengers anything. So, she returns to HQ to tell them she’s going back East and basically lets them all think she’s turned traitor again. She even goes so far as to tell Hawk she never loved him so that he won’t try to follow him. Poor Hawkeye!!

And, finally, we have The X-Men #30. Werner Roth was busy for this issue, so it s drawn xmen30by Jack Sparling. Guys. His artwork is GORGEOUS! Seriously. I’m obsessed! I like Werner Roth’s work, a lot. But Sparling’s looks like brushstrokes. It’s so different then most of the ’60s style art. I wish he would stick around!

But, enough about the art. This issue has Marvel Girl, Angel, and Professor X kidnapped by the mutant, Warlock. Warlock is actually Merlin, form King Arthur’s court. He’s refashioned himself so that Thor doesn’t find out he’s up to no good again. But he’s trying to take over the world and has decided that Marvel Girl will be his Queen. It’s a similar idea to the Avengers story with Living Laser from my last post, but way less gross. First, Warlock doesn’t harbor illusions that Marvel Girl will love him if he kills the X-Men. He gets she won’t love him and is controlling her mind. And yes, that’s a whole different kind of creepy in it’s own right, but, it’s also behavior that is treated as being bad and coming from a villain. He also doesn’t only want her as his queen because of her looks. While those obviously played a part in his decision, he also “chooses” her because of her mutant powers. It’s partially her strength that draws him to her. That’s a refreshing change, TBH. Anyway, the Prof is able to get the rest of the X-Men to them, and they battle Warlock’s army in a tournament. The X-Men win, but Warlock attempts to escape with Jean. She’s able to break free of his mental control and helps the guys defeat him. Professor X puts him back in the coma state Thor had left him in, and they save the day. And, Scott’s fury when Jean’s in trouble, and his concern for her safely finally show Jean that he cares for her!! So, hopefully these two will just kiss soon and get it over with!

Well, my loves, that’s all for now. This was some fun reading! So, until next time, keep searching!!

Finally Done with 1966!

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my loves! I’m back!!

And I’ve FINALLY finished 1966!  I really just haven’t had any time to read recently. But I think I’ve worked it out so that I can start getting my reading in more frequently, so hopefully there will be no more long hiatuses from yours truly. My goal is to get us out of the ’60’s by the end of October, but we’ll see how doable that is as we go!!

In order to finish out 1966, I read Avengers #33-35 and The X-Men #25-27. I also skimmed over Thor #134. It’s not on my list, and I’ll explain why I skimmed it when we get there! But first, lets start with Avengers!

avengers33Avengers #33 finished up the Sons of the Serpent story line from previous issues. We ended with Cap captured by the SOS, and with Goliath being a huge dick. The Avengers plus Black Widow manage to save Cap and defeat the SOS, exposing their leader as General Chen, the communist leader of an unnamed “hostile Oriental nation”. He’s basically a walking stereotype, the likes of which Avengers readers are accustomed to seeing in the villain role.

Stan Lee also lays on the patriotic rhetoric pretty thick in this one. There’s lots of talk about how democracy means anyone can think and preach anything, and it’s what makes America great. Lots of talk of freedom, and “the American Way” and the like. I mean, it’s not wrong; just laid on a little thick for my liking. And that’s not the only thing laid on thick in this issue. What else is laid on too thick for my liking, you ask? Well, my loves, that would be the over-size helping of Hank Pym’s testosterone!

Seriously, you guys. Hank is a walking, talking ball of male ego and chauvinistic, hyper masculine ideals. I can’t even deal. He’s CONSTANTLY ordering everyone around, treating Janet like she’s a child, threatening violence whenever someone makes him mad or something doesn’t go his way, and just generally trying to prove he’s the toughest and smartest guy in the room. The whole thing seems all that more nuts because he’s literally the biggest, strongest guy in the room. The man is 10 feet tall!! What could he possibly need to compensate for?!?!

On second thought…maybe that’s exactly the problem. Not to work blue, but the man is 10 feet tall. I would imagine his and Janet’s relationship isn’t quite as, um, intimate as it once was for the same reasons he has nothing to compensate for…

But, that’s enough about the Avenger’s and Goliath for now. Lets move on to the X-men!

xmen25The X-Men #25 & 26 are a fun little arc about El Tigre, a gem hunter who finds a magic pendant in South America that, when he reunites it with it’s other half in New York, gives him the powers of a Mayan god named Kukulcan. The four guys fight him in New York, and then in South America before finally defeating him (Jean is at college).

During the fight in New York, Scott is hurt. When Jean shows up at the mansion to bring the Prof books on Mayan legends, her worry for his well-being finally shows through and both Scott & Warren realize that she loves Scott. Scott vows to himself to tell Jean of his feelings when the boys return from South America. Warren begins to pout, and then spends the rest of the arc fighting with Scott. It’s soooo annoying. It’s also well done. Just as I was getting annoyed with it, as it reminded me so much of Hawkeye fighting with Cap constantly in Avengers, Roy Thomas actually has Angel say just that! He thinks to himself that he is beginning to sound like “a poor man’s Hawkeye“. It was enough to quell my annoyance and make me laugh! But then, just when I think this Angel being mad a Cyke thing is going to go away, a mishap in their battle with Kukulcan makes sure it doesn’t. Cyclops is aiming at Kuku with a full-blast optic blast, but at the last second, Kuku ducks, causing Cyke to hit Angel instead!! Angel is severely injured, and falls to the ground. In a moment of consciousness at the end of the battle, Angel accuses Cyke of hitting him deliberately, so that he can have Marvel Girl to himself! While the readers, Cyke, and Angel all KNOW that’s not what happened, Cyke begins to doubt himself. He actually starts to think that maybe, subconsciously, he did do it intentionally.  So now there’s that drama…

But seriously, when are we going to get to the point where Jean and Scott are just together, and Warren’s totally over her? Are we almost there? Cause I can’t wait to be at that point. Scott and Jean are one of my favorite comic couples ever, and I’m so over this love triangle crap!

So over it, in fact, that we’re going to move back over to Avengers before I get too worked up! LOL. So…Avengers #34 & 35. Let’s go!!

avengers34Here we see the first appearance of the Living Laser. Arthur Parks is a scientist who, after falling instantly in love with Janet upon seeing her, decides to take out the Avengers to win her love. Just some fair warning, dears, but this is going to get messy. I hate this storyline, and I’m not going to pull punches talking about it. It’s icky, and it’s not an uncommon trope, which icks me out even more.

So, Living Laser (LL) attacks Goliath at home, but is defeated, and given to Hawkeye and Cap to take to Avengers HQ. He escapes, captures those two, then captures the Wasp. He topples a South American dictatorship in a single day, and means to rule the country and later the rest of the world, when the Avengers finally beat him. Goliath gets to save the day, and the Wasp, and overall, the action is a lot of fun. My issue is the motive. LL does all of this to impress the Wasp, and make her love him. He spends the entire arc repeating the thought that once he kills the Avengers, she will see that he’s the most powerful, and then she’ll HAVE to love him. Guys, this is really gross thinking. And really problematic thinking. This idea that all women will automatically love the strongest, most powerful man is a gross idea that plays into male-centric fantasies that value hyper masculinity above all else.

Why do men think that women think like this?! And before you get on me about how “it’s just a comic” and “it was the ’60’s“, just stop yourself. I know these things. I also know that this type of thought process, and these types of stories have been around forever, and that they’re problematic at best, and harmful at worst. Especially when, within this type of story, you have your only female character literally saying “I wish I understood machines…like a man” Janet seriously says that while trying to figure out which lever on the machine will save Cap and Hawkeye. She also, after being captured by LL, threatens him by saying that HANK. WILL. SAVE. HER. She went from a card-carrying member of the world’s best super-hero team, to a helpless damsel in distress in one issue! I really can’t even!

Jan, you’re an AVENGER. You don’t need your giant, angry boyfriend to beat up LL for  you. Except that, apparently in this issue, you do. Because that’s exactly what happens. Goliath spends the entire arc making threats about the violence he’s going to inflict on LL for capturing Jan, and it’s almost as gross as LL thinking she’ll love him if he’s the most powerful. And then he comes to Jan’s rescue, and then also saves Cap & Hawkeye, who have been captured again, and blows up LL’s giant laser cannons, thus saving everyone.

He does all this because he’s able to shrink again. While Jan was missing, he disappears for a while, and it’s revealed at the last second that he was trying an experimental treatment to allow him to change size again. It works, and he can now go from Ant-Man tiny size, to normal size, and to Goliath size at will. And, from an Avengers stand-point, that’s pretty cool. Hopefully it will also chill him out, because I’m beginning to hate Hank Pym more then I ever hated Hawkeye.

I’ll also mention that this is where I skimmed through Thor #134. There’s a note in this arc that our missing mutants, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, make a brief appearance in Thor’s solo book, so I skimmed through to see why. I’m glad I did too! In #134, Jane Foster is in Wundagor. It’s under attack, and there’s a bright light in the sky that let’s us know that the High Evolutionary is busy creating “miracles” in his lab. I know that, most likely, none of this makes sense to you. That’s okay. We won’t be meeting the High Evolutionary just yet. What’s important is that, during this scene, we see Wanda and Pietro, and they reveal that a light just like that shone on the night of their birth, and that the name “Wundagore” comes to Pietro for unknown reasons. You see, this will become important to their backstory later! So, let’s try to remember it. And let’s also jump on over to The X-Men, where our twins make another quick appearance!

There’s a lot going on in issue #27, so let’s get to it! To sum it all up easily, xmen27Puppet Master is trying to get back at the FF, so he attempts to control Professor Xavier with the hopes of using him to force the X-Men to fight the FF. He can’t control the Prof, so instead he takes control of Mimic. (I also learned in this issue that the X-Men have met the Puppet Master before. A quick Google search told me it was in Fantastic Four #28, when the Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker tried to use them to destroy the FF! Someone’s not too great at coming up with new plans, huh?) You see, Mimic has been going to Metro College with Jean, and, thanks to a chemistry accident, has regained his abilities and his memories of the X-Men. Angel is still out of commission from his injury last arc, and Mimic defeats the X-Men and leaves to fight the FF. The X-Men track Puppet Master down and save Mimic from becoming a murderer. Puppet Master escapes, but Mimic is saved. Angel joins the battle at the very end and saves the day, despite the Profs warning that he could do irreparable damage to his wings and never fly again. It’s all kind of fun, but also REALLY similar to the previous Mimic storyline.

In the midst of that story, the Prof is desperately searching for new members for the X-Men. He and Cerebro sense a growing mutant threat coming, and Charles is worried about the X-Men’s ability to face it with Angel injured and Marvel Girl away at school. He first contacts Wanda and Pietro (told you they’d be back!!). They politely turn him down, saying that they’re Avengers now, and wish to remain Avengers. He also contacts Spider-Man through Bobby and Hank, but Spidey also turns them down. Charles then announces to the team, before Puppet Master takes control of Mimic, that Scott has asked to step down as leader of the X-Men, and Mimic will take his place.

So… there will be that to deal with next issue! I’m not sure I’m going to like this too much. There are very few people who I can deal with leading the X-Men in Scott’s place, and none of them have been introduced yet! Obviously, I know this won’t last long, but I’m just letting you guys know ahead of time that I won’t take it well.

But for now, we’ve covered everything there is to cover in these issues. I learned that my list isn’t quite as complete as I would like it to be. I obviously missed FF #28, which I should have read with the other issues for July 1964! Oops!! I’ll probably read it on Marvel Unlimited now, just to be complete. But we won’t recap it more then what I did here. So…that’s all for now, my loves! Until next time, keep searching!!

Finally, a Bit of Girl Power! (And Also, Hank Pym is a Jerk)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello, loves!!

I’m back to finish talking about all the reading I did last week! We’ve got 5 issues to talk about, so lets just jump right in, shall we?

Lets start with X-Men today! Issues #22 & 23 are a two issue arc in xmen22which Count Nefaria shows up with some super-powered henchmen to try to ransom Washington DC. Their plan is basically to capture the X-Men, and then either convince them to join the Count, or frame them. Nefaria’s henchmen are Plantman, Scarecrow, Porcupine, Eel, and Unicorn. He’s hired them to be his second-in-commands and to lead his Maggia crime gang. Anyway, they are able to kidnap the X-Men one by one as the kids leave the school for a vacation. The X-Men of course refuse to join Nefaria, so they’re held captive and framed for Nefaria’s plan.

Nefaria’s plan is this (and get ready, because it’s a little silly): He creates a giant dome around Washington DC. He then sends a projection of the X-Men to make a ransom demand for $100,000,000. It’s ridiculous. For real… But the X-Men decide to play along in order to save the city, so they go into the dome to “retrieve the ransom”. Because Nefaria doesn’t trust the X-Men, he sends his henchmen to watch them. But the henchmen decide they don’t want to work for Nefaria anymore, and attempt to double cross him by stealing the money from the X-Men once they’re outside of the dome. They fight the X-Men, and eventually Jean ends up with the money. She rushes it to Nefaria. While she’s turning it over to him, and stranger with his face covered shows up and destroys the machine that controls the dome. He also switches briefcases so that Nefaria flees without the money.

It turns out that the stranger is the Professor, who has created a device that will allow him to walk for short periods of time! I’m not even kidding. You might as well accept it now, because it’s going to be something he uses often for a little while. In the end, Jean gets a letter from home and announces she must leave the X-Men! Talk about a cliffhanger!

So, in this arc, there were some really silly plots. I mean, the idea of ransoming Washington DC in and of itself seems like something straight out of an Austin Powers movie! But it’s fun to watch the X-Men take on 5 super-villains at once and win. Everyone’s powers seem to be working exactly how they should be and no one has any weird new limits or abilities. So, that’s refreshing.

I think it’s interesting that Warren is still vying for Jean’s affections. At the beginning of the arc, as the kids are leaving for their vacations, Warren invites Jean to dinner in the city before she leaves. He is clearly asking her on a date. And she says yes!! But before my heart can break too much, she turns around and invites Scott to come with them!

It’s interesting that at this early point, both Scott and Warren are in love with Jean. She loves Scott at this point, but neither of them seems to notice that. Scott is convinced that she’s in love with Warren, and Warren seems to believe he still has a shot as well. It’s a silly little love triangle, but one the writers are handling well thus far. They’re not pitting Scott and Warren against each other, or having Jean play them both. Everyone’s just really bad at expressing how they really feel, just like real teenagers. It’s fun to read and will make it so much more satisfying with Scott finally gets the girl! (oops! Spoiler! *wink*)

So, lets move on to Avengers for a bit! Issue #31 takes us to South avengers31America to find out how this story line with Goliath is going to pan out! It’s also the first issue in our next trade! I’m done with Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Vol. 2. and am now on to Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Vol. 3! Seriously, I can’t describe how good it feels when I finish one trade and move on to the next. It actually lets me know I’m making a dent in this list, even if it’s the tiniest dent ever!!

That said, lets get back to the comics! The issue starts with Cap, Wasp, and Hawkeye heading for South America to find out what happened to Goliath. Wanda and Piertro are still in Eastern Europe trying to build their powers back up. (And I still think this is a really dumb story-line…) Meanwhile, Goliath and Prince Rey are trying to save Dr. Anton and stop the Keeper from losing control of the magical fire. During this time, Goliath realizes that Rey doesn’t actually want to put out the flames, but wants them for himself! So, Goliath takes off to stop the Keeper himself.

The rest of the Avengers show up, and they’re able to stop the fire and save Dr. Anton. On their way back to New York, Goliath talks to Dr. Anton about his condition. Dr. Anton doesn’t have any ideas, but does suggest that Goliath talk to another doctor he knows. A doctor named Henry Pym! HAHA!

This issue is a little nuts, and things never really slow down. But one of the best things about it is that the guys all treat Janet like an equal in a way we haven’t seen Wanda treated. While I’d like to see Wanda treated this way when/if she returns, it’s refreshing to see at least one of the female characters treated like an equal!

Of course, then we get to issue #32 and Hank ruins it.

In issue 32, Hank is working tirelessly trying to find a cure for himself. avengers32Janet is helping him until he decides he needs another scientist’s help. He enlists the help of Bill Foster, who is an employee of Tony Starks. Meanwhile, the Sons of the Serpent (SotS) are running around New York beating up immigrants and spreading xenophobic propaganda. Black Widow comes to Hawkeye to tell him what’s happening and to try to prove she’s trustworthy again.

That night, as he’s leaving Goliath’s lab, Bill Foster is attacked by the SotS because he’s black and in a nice neighborhood. Goliath finds him afterwards and vows to take out all of the SotS. He and the rest of the Avengers start to investigate them. Cap goes to see Nick Fury to see what info S.H.I.E.L.D. has on the info. This is the first time we get to see Nick in our reading! I’m so excited. I love Nick Fury. He’s such a dick, but almost always right. Anyway, while they’re investigating, the SotS attack the UN and then capture Cap. The Avengers pretend to be in support of the SotS in order to save Cap. And that’s where the issue ends! On that cliffhanger. I hate to do this to you guys…but we’ll be talking about the second half of this arc in the next post! I know, I know, I’m evil!!

This issue was fun, but also anvil-icious! I mean seriously, Stan Lee couldn’t have hit us over the head with this month’s message any harder. Prejudice and xenophobia are bad guys! (just in case you missed it!) But there’s also lots of good in this issue. This issue marks the very first time we see Hawkeye without his mask on! He’s a handsome devil, even if he is kind of a bro.

Also, we really get to see just how awful Hank Pym’s temper can be. He completely loses his shit on Janet when she tries to take care of him or help him. It’s really awful. And since I know what it’s leading towards, it’s also a bit like seeing the beginning of a car crash and knowing it’s going to happen no matter what. There’s no way to stop it.

But it’s not just Jan that Hank is awful to, although she does get the brunt of it. He barks orders at everyone and blows up violently at the slightest provocation. It’s this anger that makes Hank so interesting. He’s the most flawed Avenger, and because of that, in some ways the most human. But it doesn’t make it any easier to read. We’ll talk more about Hank as the series goes on. But for now, we need to hop back over to X-Men for a bit!

Issue #24 brings us the Locust. He is creating giant bugs to over run the xmen24country so that he can swoop in with his insecticide and save the day. The X-Men fight his giant bugs a few times and then eventually catch him. The professor convinces him he’s doing the wrong thing, and the Locust just gives up! It’s a fun little romp, and basically seems to serve as an “adventure of the month” just to advance some personal plot points for our mutants. Plot points like the following:

Jean is leaving. Her parents have enrolled her in Metro College since they feel it’s time for her to get a college degree. Afterall, the X-Men technically “graduated” from Xavier’s a while ago. This  departure allows both Scott and Warren to be sad at losing Jean, and we get to see that even now, none of these clueless teens seem to see how the others feel about them. Warren tries to cheer Jean up by letting her know that Johnny Storm goes to Metro too, but it’s an act that Jean sees right through. Meanwhile, both Jean and Scott are pouting about never having told each other their feelings.

But don’t worry my loves! Jean won’t be gone long! You see, Metro College is right in the city! So Jean can come visit whenever she likes. Which she does, just in time to help the boys out fighting Locust. Roy Thomas writes Jean so much more self-assured in her powers than Stan Lee did, and it’s a treat to read. She’s an equal in the fighting now. And she’s also the one who saves the day in this issue. (She realizes before anyone else that the Locust is using the antennae on his costume to control his giant beetles, and uses her powers to tangle them up, causing the beetles to attack the Locust instead of the X-Men.)  It’s also interesting to note that Werner Roth (aka Jay Gavin) draws Jean to be dressing in a much more sophisticated way once she’s at college. It automatically makes her seem older and more mature on her return to the mansion. It will be interesting to see how she continues to progress as a character under Roy!

Well, that’s all for now my loves! I have some more reading to do!! We’re almost done with 1966. I can’t wait! Until then, keep searching…

“Life Is Hard When You’re a Superhero”, Or Why I Love Scott Summers…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello, my loves!

So, I got a TON of reading done yesterday. Seriously. I read my way through like 10 issues (5 months of 1966!!). There’s a LOT going on in these 10 issues, and a couple different arcs, so I’m going to break them up into multiple posts, mostly for the sake of my own sanity. We’ve got some line-up changes in both books, as well as the return of some old friends and foes, so lets just dig in.

Avengers #28! This is sort of a stand-alone issue. By that, I mean that the main story doesn’t continue on into issue 29, but some of the plot points and loose threads do. This issue sees the return of Giant-Man and the Wasp to the Avengers. Hank Pym reveals his secret identity to the Avengers when he asks them to help him find Wasp, who has been missing since she warned the Avengers about Attuma in the last arc. It turns out she’s been captured by The Collector!! This is the first appearance of the Collector, and guys, I’m super excited. He’s such a creepy villain, and really interesting. (Also, I’m totally obsessed with Benicio Del Toro’s portrayal of him in the MCU!!) Anyway, Hank joins the Avengers (with a new costume and a new name! Say hello to…Goliath!) and they rescue Jan from The Collector and the Beetle. Turns out that’s who Hawkeye had tied up in the last arc. He disappeared because the Collector came and “collected him”.

The big take away from this issue is that Goliath and Wasp are back in the main Avenger’s line-up. Also, at the end of the issue, Goliath tries to shrink back down to normal size, but passes out and gets stuck at 10 feet. The issue ends with us not knowing what’s happened to Dr. Pym!

Possibly. But let’s be honest, we know he’s not!

Before we find out Goliath’s fate, lets jump upstate to Xavier’s and check in on our mutants!

  

Issues 20 & 21 give us the return of Lucifer, as well as the story of how he and the Professor originally met, leading to the Professor becoming paralyzed at the hands of Lucifer. We learn that Lucifer is an alien, but not from where he came. He’s trying to help his race take over the Earth and enslave the human race using a super computer and robots.

The X-Men are able to stop his robots, but before they’re able to deal with Lucifer himself, the leaders of his race step in and banish him to eternal exile for failing them. It’s actually kind of messed up. Remember when we talked about the Prof erasing memories and how it’s clearly a terrible thing but everyone acts like it’s totally okay, and preferable to death? This is another one of those things. Lucifer is banished to some realm with no sense of time or space, so he’s basically going to be stuck in a hell for all eternity. How is that better then killing him? It’s not. It’s totally messed up. And the only thing that makes it a little easier to swallow is that it’s the other villains that do this to him, and not our heroes. But just slightly.

Other things of note from this arc: First off, Roy Thomas’s first arc fits in seamlessly to the world Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created. His writing style is similar enough to Lee’s but he gives the characters a tiny bit more depth, which I love! Secondly, at the beginning of the arc, Scott decides to leave the X-Men. He feels like he needs to find a doctor to fix his eyes so that he’s no longer a “danger to everyone”. Here’s the thing…this is a little annoying to me, because I know that Scott will eventually grow into the great leader he’s meant to be, but it makes sense with his character thus far, and I really like it for that reason. Cyke’s biggest flaw is his martyrdom (at least for a few decades). He doesn’t see that he’s a born leader, or that he’s a good guy at heart. He only sees what he thinks is the curse of his eyes. They’re the reason he’s so sad all the time, and the reason he feels he can’t tell Jean how he feels about her. It’s pretty heartbreaking. It’s also what makes Scott one of my favorite characters. I’ve had many discussions with many fans over the years about Cyclops. There are a LOT of people out there that don’t like Scott. They think he’s too much of a boring, vanilla boy scout type.

Ten and I are judging the Cyclops haters

But I will argue for my ruby-eyed boy till I’m hoarse, because I think that analysis of him misses the whole point of Cyclops. Scott is a deeply flawed, severely scarred individual who has had a really hard, messed up life. We’ll be talking about this more as we learn more about his backstory, his family, and his relationships with Jean and especially the Professor! Just know that, if you don’t like Cyke, I will try to change your mind!  And, I’m judging you! LOL. Also, that was a REALLY long paragraph all about one mutant. Whew…I’m tired!

On that note, let’s hop back over the city and check on our mutant siblings and the rest of the Avengers!

Avengers # 29 & 30 bring us some old villains, and some new loves. This is a fun arc! First, we find out that Goliath is okay, but he is stuck being 10 feet tall. If he tries to change size again, the stress it puts on his cells will kill him. This leads to Hank storming off to pout for the first (but far from the last) time. This is also our first real example of Hank’s anger issues. Those will rear their ugly heads in the near future on more then one occasion.

Anyway, the main storyline here is that the Black Widow has returned to the US to try and defeat the Avengers. (She’s showed up in Tales of Suspense before. She was a Russian spy who falls in love with Hawkeye and then is captured by her communist handlers and taken back to “The East”). She’s been brainwashed into being a communist again, and enlists the help of the Swordsman and Power Man to take out the Avengers. The three of them manage to capture all of the Avengers except the Wasp and Goliath. The couple finally show up to save the others, and in the end, our villains escape because Hawkeye can’t bare to shoot his blast arrow at Natasha. He loves her too much.  Issue 29 ends with the Avengers heading back to HQ to regroup.

In issue 30, our Avengers split up a bit to take care of personal business while they wait to find where Black Widow, Swordsman, and Power Man have gone. Wanda and Pietro head off for Eastern Europe suddenly because they feel their powers are dwindling and think the answer to fixing them is at home. It’s very sudden, and not explained well. They’re mutants, so there’s no reason why their powers should be fading, but oh well.

Goliath takes off for South America to find a scientist that’s down there, who he believes can help him find a way to shrink back to normal size. Once he gets there, he learns that Dr. Anton has been kidnapped by a race of people living in a “forbidden land” who believe he’s there to steal their magic cobalt fire. Goliath attempts to rescue him and gets caught up in a war over the flames. It’s a little silly, but it IS fun to watch everyone freak out about the “giant” who has some to steal the magic fire.

And finally, Cap, Wasp, and Hawkeye track down our villains, and then Hawkeye insists on going after them on his own to make up for letting them escape. Hawkeye succeeds in defeating Power Man and Swordsman, with some last minute help from Black Widow. Apparently, her love for Hawkeye is so strong, it broke through the brainwashing! Yay!!

Notable things in this arc: Issue 29 gives us one of my favorite lines so far. Swordsman is carrying an unconscious Scarlet Witch and comments that she seems so frail and helpless. (GAG) The Black Widow immediately responds “So does an Asp…until it strikes”. I love it. On one level, Widow is reminding Swordsman not to be too relaxed about their enemies. On another level, she’s telling him (and thus the readers) that even though she’s a woman, Scarlet Witch is still a very formidable opponent. It makes this feminist happy to read. Especially in an arc where the women don’t get to do too much.

Also, Hawkeye has now decided to stop being such a dick (probably because Hank Pym is back to fill that roll *wink*). He and Cap are now all buddy-buddy, and I have to be honest, I think it might actually be more annoying then their fighting! I guess this is a classic “be careful what you wish for” moment!

Well my darlings, that’s all for now. I’ll be back soon so we can talk about what happens to Goliath in South America, as well as what’s going on at Xavier’s! Until then, my loves, keep searching…

Just a Quickie…X-Men #19

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello loves!!

This is going to be a quick post about X-Men #19.

xmen19

I wanted to post about it before I get into May of 1966, since those issues start new, multi-issue arcs for both titles and this is just a stand-alone issue. It is also the last issue written by Stan Lee. Staring with issue #20, Roy Thomas will be at the helm.

We salute you, Stan Lee!

So, in this issue the X-men fight Mimic. He’s basically a jack-ass with the power to “mimic” the talents, knowledge, and powers of anyone he’s close to. He decides to take on the X-Men to gain their powers so that he can retrieve a machine his father was building that would allow him to keep the powers he mimics forever, instead of them fading away when he’s no longer close to X-Men.

It’s a fun story. I have a few issues with it, and a few things I love about it. My biggest issue is that, yet again, Jean is a damsel in distress. Mimic kidnaps her in order to lure the rest of the X-Men to the mine where his machine is buried. It’s really frustrating to constantly get excited about character development for her, just to take two steps backwards. I wouldn’t even mind it so much if we were given a reason why Jean was the one captured. Like, maybe Mimic needs her telekinetic powers for the first phase of his plan. But no, we get no such reasoning. It’s just because she’s the girl, and thus the easiest to capture.

Nine is growing tired of this bullshit

On the other hand, her capture does allow for some of the story line that I loved! And speaking of love, Scotty-boy is in L-O-V-E you guys!! **SQUEE** I can’t begin to tell you how much I love Scott’s love for Jean, especially in the early days before he really tells her how he feels. It’s adorable, and he makes himself into such a martyr. I can’t help but fall for a guy who has those kind of issues. (I realize that I’m probably revealing a bit too much about myself right now, but oh well!) While sometimes, in the future, Scott’s blind devotion to Jean and his martyr act will become problematic, right now it’s just super corny and so sticky-sweet that it gives me cavities. And I love every second of it!!!

But enough about our young love birds. Let’s talk about powers again. Because in this issue, Professor X seems to be able to use his “mutant brain” to no only sense the presence of machinery, but also to effect in a way similar to how he effects people. This seems like a bit of a stretch to me. I find myself looking forward to the day that all of these character’s powers are named and given power sets that the writers adhere to for the most part. It’s becoming too convenient for the writers if Professor X or Magneto can basically do whatever they need to do and it’s all chalked up to “magnetism” or a “mutant brain” Also, according to this issue, Iceman has to worry about running out of ice? Since when? This has NEVER been mentioned before. I’ll be keeping my eye out for an instance where he either mentions it again, or he actually runs out of ice!!

And on that note, it’s time for me to leave you again my darlings. I must read the next arc of Avengers and X-Men! I can’t wait to see what Roy Thomas brings to the table. So, until next time, my loves! Keep searching….