The Batlord

As anyone who reads the Comic Book/Graphic Novel thread might know, I've recently been reading a lot of comic books. A lot of them. It's getting pretty bad honestly, and whatever chance I could have at a real life is quickly slipping away. Not that I care of course, cause... ****ing comic books, dude. Hell yeah. And seeing as how I'm reading so many of them, am too lazy to join another forum, and really want to talk about what I've been reading, I'm setting up yet another journal so I don't keep spamming the other thread. This will usually take the form of longish reviews. I'll try to keep spoilers to newer titles in spoiler tags, but if it's an older comic that one might expect a nerd to be more familiar with, then I won't be as cautious. If you don't know that the Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy *spoiler alert* then you're in the wrong thread. But I may also do something on an artist or writer that I'm digging, or bitch/praise some new development in the comic book world (expect my thoughts on the new female Thor when that finally happens in October). The sky's the limit. Unless you're Superman.

Oh yeah, I checked out the first issue of the New 52 relaunch of Superman the other day. Not particularly impressed. I don't want to read captions of a newspaper article narrating a battle while I'm watching it. I thought we'd left behind the overuse of narrated exposition in comic books years ago. If I wasn't trying to get to Superman/Wonder Woman for some cheesy love stuff then I'd probably set that aside for a good while. I hear Action Comics, another Superman title just like how Detective Comics is a Batman title, is cool though, so we'll see.

Anyways, join me as I create the nerdiest, most girl-repellent thread on this forum since Urban's Doctor Who thread...




Just read this about a half hour ago and it seems like an excellent place to start. For anyone not familiar with this particular issue, it's probably one of the most important in X-Men history, not to mention the comic book industry in general, as it started the run that pushed X-Men and Marvel comics to the top of the heap. It was also important because before this, the series had been out of print for five years due to bad sales. So it wasn't just a change in creative direction or an attempt to end a sales slump, it was a Hail Mary to resurrect a title that would have otherwise been forgotten in the sands of time. And since it was the first X-Men movie that kicked-started the comic book movie craze that goes strong to this day... Heavy ****. But does it stand the test of time? Kinda, sorta, not really.

I'm just going to get this out of the way first so we can move on. Now, I understand that the writing of comic books has become much more sophisticated since the mid-seventies, but certain basic elements of comic book writing from back in the day are still kind of goofy these days. Like I mentioned earlier, the overuse of narration throughout an issue, especially in battle scenes, can take you out of the story. It certainly builds a pulpy, "comic book atmosphere", but if one weren't already culturally conditioned to accept these tropes they would be very jarring. Still, when the writer or a character explains something with far too much cheesy dialogue it does have a certain charm that taps your childhood on the shoulder.

But there's no excuse for a character to use alliteration out loud. At one point Cyclops actually says, "Quickly, Bobby-- throw an air-tight ice-dome over this raft! It's our only chance to survive this miserable maelstrom!" I lol'ed, but I definitely wasn't lol'ing with the comic book.

Alright, finally onto the meat of this review. This issue must have been pretty bold for its time. To bring the series back from the dead they obviously went all out in trying to draw people in. The X-Men had previously been a collection of pretty, white people who, though they may not have been fascists, would otherwise have been Hitler-approved. New team members include an African woman, a Russian, a German, a Native American, and a Japanese guy. I don't imagine there were many of those kinds of people in comic books at the time, at least not in anything other than villain or bit parts. Why a series about people battling discrimination had previously avoided this kind of diversity I don't know. White people are tricksy like that. It's kind of funny though. They were obviously trying their best to be inclusive, and it's commendable, but they make more than a few faux pas.

One of the new members, John Proudstar, aka Thunderbird, is Native American. Apache specifically. The mere fact that he's not shooting arrows at cowboys while beating his hand against his mouth and whooping in All-American Western is already a pretty revolutionary thing. He's also not too fond of white Americans for obvious reasons, and isn't afraid of saying it out loud, which is even more bold. They could have taken the easy way out and made him proudly stoic, with a dash of mysterious, letting any anti-Manifest Destiny sentiment be subtextual at best. Good for them. But does he really need to wrestle buffalo and wear a feathered head band with his costume? That also has cowboy tassels? I suppose that's a minor complaint though, considering this is the seventies we're talking about. There are other gaffs, such as Sunfire, the Japanese guy, living in a rice paper house and wearing a kimono, or Storm being a topless,rain-making goddess for superstitious, animal-sacrificing, loin cloth-wearing African tribesman, but all in all, this is probably about as decisive a blow for diversity as one could hope for.

But who really cares about a bit of unintentional offensiveness when this book has the first appearances of Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine? Okay, technically Wolverine had previously made a cameo in The Incredible Hulk, but this was his first real introduction. How ****ing cool is that? There aren't many issues that make this much comic book history in their first fifteen pages.

Unfortunately this is also a part of one of this book's two big problems. This is a single issue that tries to introduce seven new main characters, setup their issues and interpersonal dynamics, and then tell an actual story, all while trying to make like Jesus and raise this series from the dead. Granted, it's a double-size issue, but in a perfect world this kind of storytelling would preferably take place over an entire, multi-issue story arc. They attempt to keep this thing organized by dividing it into four "chapters", but it only partially works, although given the circumstances I don't suppose there was much they could do about that. So the mere fact that this is actually readable is a triumph.

The first "chapter" shows Professor X meeting each of the newcomers, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Banshee, Thunderbird, and Sunfire, and convincing them to join the X-Men for an unspecified mission. Due to the short amount of time they can afford to spend on each character this usually comes across as...

"Hey, I need you to join the X-Men."

"I don't know, man."

"Pretty please?"

"Okay, why not."

Understandable that they would have to rush this section of the book, but when Storm, who was introduced as she was ending a drought for her worshipers, seems to decide on a whim to follow some bald guy and leave her followers to fend for themselves without a backward glance, it's kind of odd.

The other big issue is that with all of this (thin) character stuff going on, the actual story itself is pretty much entirely pulp. When the new team gets to the mansion they find the only remaining member of the original X-Men, Cyclops, who informs them that the others, Jean Grey, Iceman, Havoc, Angel, and Lorna Dane (Polaris), have all been kidnapped. They had traveled to a supposedly deserted tropical island to search for a mutant whose power level had lit Cerebro up like a Christmas tree on the Fourth of July (a cookie to the person who gets that reference), where they were attacked by an unknown assailant. Cyclops awoke on the "strato-jet" alone, with the plane on auto-pilot back the mansion. Unable to turn it around he returned and now here we are.

Long story short, the island was the mutant. Atom bomb tests, yadda yadda yadda, big monster with sharp teeth, feeds off mutant energy, cue screaming Japanese civilians. Not that there are any Japanese people on the island, you know, except for Sunfire, but you get my point. As I've said over and over, this was a book that was supposed to revitalize this series, and yet it consists of the X-Men going to a tropical island, fighting giant birds and crabs, exploring a mysterious temple, and then battling a cliched monster. I don't know whether that's Conan or Godzilla-type ****. Either way, as this was obviously supposed to get people interested in the X-Men again, why was the main story not about the X-Men dealing with anti-mutant prejudice? Or, you know, absolutely anything that might actually be relevant to the series as a whole? Nightcrawler almost got burned at the stake in the first few pages of the book, but other than that there was almost no mention of any kind of greater mutant struggle. Just pulp. Fun pulp, but not exactly what should have been called for. I have to give them a pass though. This thing was over-stuffed as it is, and a more fleshed out story would have been impossible. Whaddaya gonna do?

The story is sort of saved at the end with some inventive use of teamwork and mutant powers. Storm uses lightning to charge up Polaris (who shares her father Magneto's control over magnetism), who then uses her powers to separate the island from the Earth's magnetic field (or something), sending it flying off into space (shut up, it makes sense). It also gives us one of the greatest panels in comic book history.




There's no way Dave Cockrum wasn't sitting over this after drawing it and chuckling like a cretin. I know I was.

So yeah, all things considered, storywise, this is mediocre, but as a historical document, it's priceless. And considering that the next issue would bring on Chris Claremont, who would go on to write the Pheonix Saga about twenty issues later, things were certainly looking up in the world of the X-Men. Yeah, and I'm totally gonna do the Phoenix Saga when I get to it.

Excelsior sayeth The Batlord!

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