Endings and beginnings

X-Factor #31

Peter David and Pablo Raimondi delivered. Mutant Town is burning inside an impenetrable barrier. This is the end. This is depressing. This feels very symbolic of how mutants are continually being marginalized and the remaining ones have lost hope after the events in Messiah CompleX. But life goes on for X-Factor, as they were - as always - attacked by a villain that have a personal vendetta against them. Arcade wanted to destroy X-factor and raze the Middle East Side or Mutant Town to the ground. The team did what they felt they needed to do – to continue to help people and save lives. It’s sad that the people they saved were ex-mutants who were trying and failing to find meaning and motivation to continue living.

Valerie Cooper and the fire fighters were outside and they were doing their best to get through the barrier as they watched people burn to death. She called SHIELD and asked for assistance from Iron Man and the Avengers but she couldn’t get through. Emma Frost’s words to Tony Stark and Carol Danvers in Civil War rang true again – Where were you when we needed you? When Genosha was burning? When the children were murdered?

X-men Divided We Stand 2/2

The first installment of this limited series followed the young kids from the Xavier Academy/New Xmen who did not know what to do with themselves now that the school is gone. This issue told stories about tying up loose ends from various X-titles.

Hank McCoy went back to the Mansion to clean up - he burned confidential medical records, grabbed personal belongings, closed down his computers and lab, and said goodbye to the place where he grew up.

We caught up with Alex Summers after the Emperor Vulcan Mini-Series - he's in prison with Lorna and the rest of the Starjammers. To further torment him, Vulcan told Alex that the Xmen were no more.

Illyana Raspuntin has a new resolve to get her soul back after the New Xmen arc where she saw that there were people who still cared for her. Forge’s story filled-in-the-blank of how Bishop was able to follow Cable to whatever timeline he was in. Bishop practically beat him up and stole his time travel tech. This left Forge with renewed determination to protect whatever is left of the mutants by protecting the "present."

Last is Nori and Moonstar deciding what to do next - I have often wondered what happened to Nori - she was the leader of the New Xmen and why was she not chosen to be in Young Xmen I don’t understand. The experience left her confused and full of self loathing for her failure to save friends and teammates. Her conversation with Moonstar ended up in a depressing note. Moonstar told her not to lose hope as there will always be a new day. Nori had the last word though, she said, that night will always come.

I glad that Marvel did this. Of course there were no “complete stories” here. If you don’t follow the various X-titles you’d be lost in three out of the five stories and would probably be bitching about how the stories were disjointed and incomplete. But maybe this is a ploy to tease people to go buy the trades of New Xmen, Emperor Vulcan, and follow the on-going Cable arc. I don’t know. I’m just glad that at least I know what happened to Alex, Illyana, and Nori and I’m looking forward to what happens next!

Birds of Prey #118

Tony Bedard has taken over writing BoP - he has written excellent stand alone issues after Gail Simone left. This is another great stand alone issue that will have repercussions in the future.

Misfit was kidnapped by the Dark Side Club - it seems that the New Gods incarnated in human forms (no explanation has been given yet) with Darkseid as a black guy call Dark Side. He ran the thunderdome-like arena where kidnapped superheroes fight. (Reminiscent of the JLU animated series arc and the JSA arc). Misfit and Black Alice were both kidnapped and of course they fought to the death! These two have been fighting for Oracle’s undivided attention since they met but the Dark Side DNA and blood tests of both of the girls came up with a surprising twist... They're related!

Nicola Scott's art is excellent as usual - my favorite was the panel where Black Alice borrowed the powers of Etrigan and when she teleported with a villain (using Misfit's powers - she always warned people that she couldn't teleport others with her) and the woman exploded to bits and pieces.

And even if Manhunter only played a bit part it was nice to see her around the DCU.

There will be spoilers

The X-men and mutant kind have faced near extinction before through genocide by humans, a virus, or people from space or the future wanting to kill-off everyone with a mutant gene. Usually everyone got cured, the killer/s neutralized. After M-day, 91% of mutants lost their mutant gene, there’s no “enemy” to fight or a virus to find a cure for, and no problem that science or magic can solve. For two years, mutants know that they slowly dying off and in that time different X-titles have been setting up characters and events for the Messiah Complex. Through bad and good writing I have stuck with the titles. My investment is big. Thus, my expectations for this event is high and so far it has consistently delivered fantastic story-telling.

Madrox and Layla are sent 80 years to the future where mutants are kept in concentration camps (where we learn that Lalyla's mutant gene "comes and goes"). Rictor goes under cover among the Purifiers because he would not register as a mutant anymore. The New X-men led by Surge went to attack the Purifiers as payback for murdering their friends. They almost did not make it out alive. Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Angel, and Emma Frost (at least in spirit, her body’s back at the Xavier’s) fought the Marauders where Kurt got mortally wounded and Logan found out from Gambit that the baby was with Cable. Predator X (the monster made by the people who created X-23 and is reinforced by Mercury’s well…mercury) is tracking the yummiest monster treat around which is of course the baby.

Scott and Xavier are still butting heads with Xavier asserting that he should lead and that Scott has been making wrong decisions. Scott has assembled X-Force: Wolverine, X-23, Caliban, Warpath, Hepzibah, and Rahne to track Cable and the baby with order to kill Cable if necessary to ensure that the baby is in their hands.The Reavers led by Death Strike is also after Cable.

Xavier’s was leveled to the ground by the O*N*E* Sentinels who were taken over by sentient metallic goo. Sentinels wanting to kill mutants is old but they pulled it off because for a long time O*N*E* Sentinels were written to useless in protecting the kids in the Institute – they were harmless, manned by stupid soldiers – it caught me off guard.

In my opinion, Batman War Games was one the most well executed cross-overs ever since the tone of the story-telling and the art was consistent throughout different titles, writers, and artists. Messiah Complex is at par and more. Brubaker, Yost, Kyle, David, and Carey are all in their top form as they write great fight scenes but they do not forget to delve into the characters’ self doubts, fear, and anger and how these affect their decisions and actions. The artists have all been great. So far, I cannot predict how they will resolve the story – or maybe that is me refusing to think ahead. I don’t want anything to spoil the ride.

The Mutancy Meme, Part 2: Do the Evolution

Being the second installment of an essay on the subject of Mutancy as Meme in the (Mainstream) Marvel Universe. Part 1 is here.

Borrowing from Gladwell, one may posit mutancy as a kind of "social innovation", in the fictional culture of the Marvel universe. So, over time, it should (theoretically) gain acceptance within the broader population, down an echelon of levels:

... from a limited number of "early adopters" (the first batches of the X-Men and the rival Brotherhood of Mutants),

... to a larger number of "secondary adopters" (the pan-cultural 'Second Genesis' that was initiated with Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975),

... and from them to "tertiary adopters" (the younger New Mutants; and even later, Generation X, who probably came of age with the experience of mutancy as a fairly common occurrence),

... then to "quadranary adopters" amongst the general non-mutant population, etc.

This diffusion of "the mutancy meme" within 616 society follows (appropriately enough) the self-replicating nature of a virus, as it spontaneously adapts to its host bodies.

This process was further egged on by the paradigm shifts taking place in the "real-world" comic industry that keeps the X-men franchise in business. A handful of innovative writers started to recognize that mutancy's central tenets needed to be retooled and updated to fit the increasing complexities of a globalized world. Unstable trans-national boundaries and the spread of information across the world marketplace made the over-simplistic tropes of past decades now seem like hoary clichés -- was it honestly conceivable that a large and potentially influential minority would remain despised and marginalized forever? Not likely.

Nevertheless, it would be an uphill struggle to present mutancy as a respectable condition, when the species' most prominent radical terrorist group, the Mutant Liberation Front, looked as hokey as this sorry bunch:


Something urgently needed to change. And so, after the line-wide "Revolution" campaign in 2000, we began to see a more nuanced vision of mutancy. Mutants are still hated and feared by the public at large, but they're also the subject of much fascination and envy. They're marketed, branded, and commercialized, in the same way the mainstream culture has deigned to adapt specific aspects of other minority cultures (the design sensibilities of queer aesthetics, for instance; or the macho posturing of black American hip-hop).

Joe Casey introduced the X-Corporation as a way of establishing mutant presence in the realm of transnational business -- a concept that was sadly never fully realized (in the Marvel universe, anyway). Meanwhile, Brian Bendis conceptualized the synthetic Mutant Growth Hormone as a lethal means for humans to simulate the mutant experience, mimicking the advent of "designer drugs" in the 'real world'.

But perhaps nobody redefined the scope of mutancy quite like Grant Morrison, over the course of his run on New X-Men. Yeah, I know -- the hype! But you know what? It's almost entirely deserved. Srsly.
Let me count the ways:

:: He took the concept of unchecked evolution a step further with the innovation of secondary mutations.

:: Morrison's run brought to life an entire mutant-centric youth culture, with its own music, iconography, slang, and (perhaps most radically) fashions catered to mutant physiology.

:: His stint replaced the sewer-dwelling Morlocks with a more believable immigrant-style community of lower-income mutant outcasts. Known informally as Mutant Town, the neighborhood was later fully realized by crime writer David Hine, in District X.

:: He posited the idea of the U-Men, a contraband paramilitary organization that harvests mutant organs to bestow powers on wealthy human clients. These memorable villains combined the real-world horror of illegal medical trafficking with the outlandish notion of a uniform-wearing sci-fi death cult.

And that doesn't even begin to cover individual figures like Sublime and Xorn, each of whom are inspired by the key themes of the franchise, in their own unique ways.

Of course, all of this would soon be undone by the (completely misguided) advent of House of M, and the resulting Decimation storyline. But i'll save that for my next installment...

The Mutancy Meme, Part 1: (Not So) Secret Origin of the Species

What makes you think
you can cure our disease?
Maybe its just our biology
Maybe its time to make room
for another species
This is the 21st Century!
    "Modern Day Catastrophists",
     Bad Religion (1993)

In the past decade, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell has become an established talking-head of pop sociology, largely due to the unexpected success of his book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. In it, he details how "social epidemics" take place, bringing about radical, sudden and often chaotic shifts in the state of affairs within a particular social network.

Indeed, Gladwell's theories apply rather neatly to the changing perception of mutant society within the fictional Marvel universe (MU) from the start of the new millennium onwards -- at least within the continuity designated as "616" by loyal fans.

However, I'm jumping the gun here. Before I get into that, a quick recap...

When the concept of mutants was first developed in the MU, it was simply a matter of people born with a unique genetic quirk -- an "X" factor -- that bestows them with amazing, frequently dangerous powers (usually manifested during adolescence). In all likelihood, the whole "Children of the Atom" schtick was probably a timely, catch-all narrative device that allowed creator Stan Lee to free himself of the responsibility of writing elaborate origin stories for each character with superhuman abilities. However, as part of the concept, Lee decided that these mutant youths should deal with all the usual mundane teen bullshit that "normal" kids go through, ostensibly to better cope with everyday realities, in the face of their overwhelming power. And so that proto-Hogwarts -- the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters -- was created as the home-base for the nascent X-Men.


When the X-Men series was revived in 1975 after prolonged hiatus, subsequent writers made a conscious effort to use mutancy as a kind of narrative short-hand for discussing the prevailing social and ethical mores of the era. Advances in the field of genetics and theories of evolution led to the concept of mutants as homo superior -- the next step in the progress of evolution. And this, in turn, informed the separatist agenda of totalitarian arch-villain Magneto. He is depicted as a Jewish holocaust survivor, and father to a pair of half-Roma (gypsy) children, definitively announcing their outsider status within 'proper' Western society. Like the veterans of so many resistance movements, the spurned victims had embraced the megalomania of their oppressors, seeking to establish an insular society of Nietzchean uber-men.

In contrast, Professor Charles Xavier advocated his MLK-esque "dream" of a quasi-utopian world of harmony between mutants and 'baseline' humans, echoing the Civil Rights disputes of the previous decade, whose legal repercussions were only starting to be felt across the fabric of everyday American society.

Interspersed within this over-arching framework were allegories of multiculturalism (including the creation of a handful of culturally diverse -- if tokenistic -- mutant adults), ghetto isolationism (via the deformed, sewer-dwelling mutants known as the Morlocks), environmental conservation and neo-Darwinism (by way of the Savage Land, a verdant jungle landscape where dinosaurs have survived extinction). It was all very topical, but couched in the visual and textual language of "soft" sci-fi and four-color pulp adventure.


As the 80s wore on, the series had largely grown out and franchised, on the strength of heavy character development and over-dramatic soap opera dynamics. But it also gradually lost its focus on mutancy as a theme, with memorable but non-topical epics (the Dark Phoenix Saga), intergalactic campiness (the Shi'Ar, the Starjammers) and quasi-mystical themes (Inferno, the Shadow King).

Mutants were still hated and feared by a world that refused to understand them -- but it was mostly in a vague, general, foreboding kind of way. Still, you'd get the occasional return to form -- such as the one-shot graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, which inspired Bryan Singer's second X-Men film, and threw religious fundamentalism into the mix. But for the most part, the mutant-as-outsider leitmotif receded into the background, usually invoked during single tales as a metaphor for everything from the nascent recognition of Gay/ Lesbian/ Bisexual/ Transgendered identity, to the difficulty of living with AIDS (by then, already a burgeoning epidemic).

Which all leads me back to Gladwell's Tipping Point...