tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post8158014603225008441..comments2024-03-28T10:18:00.370-05:00Comments on Gentlemen of Leisure: X-amining X-Men Annual #4Austin Gortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-12958886334820158542013-11-16T03:51:10.686-06:002013-11-16T03:51:10.686-06:00We never did discover a back story for Margali Sza...We never did discover a back story for Margali Szardos but I think I've finally determined Claremont's real intent (which thankfully wipes out my previous theory of Magda becoming Mystique which I was never comfortable with:).<br /><br />Her names are telling to what Claremont may have intended though.<br /><br />Claremont undoubtedly took the name Margali from Marion Zimmer Bradley's books The Shattered Chain & Thendara House, where one of the main characters is named Margali, just like he had taken the name "Sharra".<br /><br />I'll get back to the significance of this further down, but first...<br /><br />As for Szardos, the only etymological connection to this name comes from the 1974 science fantasy film, Zardoz, named after the eponymous god head that is revealed to mean "Wizard of Oz" due to it being a skillful manipulator rather than an actual deity.<br /><br />I'd therefore suggest Claremont used this as a surname for Margali to imply she was masking her true identity.<br /><br />Now back to the significance of the name Margali.<br /><br />In the abovementioned The Shattered Chain, Margali is a derivative of Magdalen, with the book's character Magda Lorne also being referred to as Margali n'ha Ysabet (the Darkovan name from her mother).<br /><br />So does this suggest Margali was the name Magda, Magneto's wife, took to ensure he never found her?<br /><br />Did she go back to Germany… but the main thing is to have her somewhere where Magnus would not find her. He searched very intently for a few years at least, before eventually giving up and assuming she was dead. Did she keep a low profile by joining a travelling circus, since she wouldn't stay in one place for long?Nathan Adlerhttp://fanfix.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-59284798858375761762012-09-13T14:45:10.645-05:002012-09-13T14:45:10.645-05:00@Nathan: ...yet he let John Byrne do it for Scarle...@Nathan: <i>...yet he let John Byrne do it for Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver by planting the seeds that would lead to the Magneto-as-their-Dad retcon. </i><br /><br />Yeah, it definitely seems like Stern favored Byrne over Claremont, and that's just another example. <br />Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-42832049132615599592012-09-10T08:07:54.169-05:002012-09-10T08:07:54.169-05:00Roger Stern commented in Back Issue #29 that he wo...Roger Stern commented in Back Issue #29 that he wouldn’t let Chris Claremont reveal Nightmare as Nightcrawler's father because he didn’t like characters being revealed as secretly related to one another, preferring mutants to be revealed as having normal parents, yet he let John Byrne do it for Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver by planting the seeds that would lead to the Magneto-as-their-Dad retcon.Nathan Adlerhttp://fanfix.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-83762556917928888732012-09-10T08:04:55.053-05:002012-09-10T08:04:55.053-05:00Roger Stern commented in Back Issue #29 that he wo...Roger Stern commented in Back Issue #29 that he wouldn’t let Chris Claremont reveal Nightmare as Nightcrawler's father because he didn’t like characters being revealed as secretly related to one another, preferring mutants to be revealed as having normal parents, yet he let John Byrne do it for Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver by planting the seeds that would lead to the Magneto-as-their-Dad retcon.Nathan Adlerhttp://fanfix.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-28251689172996936442012-02-08T12:09:13.691-06:002012-02-08T12:09:13.691-06:00@Blam: ...but if it does it has to walk a real tig...@Blam: <i>...but if it does it has to walk a real tightrope given that she doesn't have the memory blocks and implants that Wolverine did. </i><br /><br />I *think* it was established at some point that during her transition from street urchin to African weather goddess, her mind blocked out her childhood memories (or something like that). <br /><br />I obviously don't remember the details, nor if that was a Claremont reveal or something that came along later, but if that is the case, at least someone recognized some of the incongruities in Storm's various pre-X-Men roles, however lame the explanation is (and "she just forget" is pretty lame...). <br /><br />Whatever the case, I agree that Storm's surprisingly-complicated back story tries a bit too hard at having its cake and eating it too, in that it tries to reconcile way too many disparate things.Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-91474528586392353132012-02-06T17:56:26.207-06:002012-02-06T17:56:26.207-06:00The other thing that bothers me about Storm's ...<br>The other thing that bothers me about Storm's whole street-urchin burglar thing is that it puts her backstory so at odds with itself. When Xavier recruited her, she'd bought into being worshipped as a nature goddess. How does that jibe with her recalling her childhood in Egypt so well? I don't know of any story that specifically deals with her leaving Cairo and ending up in the Serengeti beyond the one-page montage in <i>X-Men</i> #102 — which doesn't mean one doesn't exist, but if it does it has to walk a real tightrope given that she doesn't have the memory blocks and implants that Wolverine did. Also, Storm being revealed as the daughter of an African princess and an American diplomat, born in Harlem, is sort-of a "have your cake and eat it too" thing in terms of the new team being so international, not that I'm ascribing any kind of jingoism to Claremont making her American by birth.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-38190645363211223342012-02-06T11:21:36.653-06:002012-02-06T11:21:36.653-06:00@Nathan: Margali built the fake Hell, but Amanda s...@Nathan: <i>Margali built the fake Hell, but Amanda sent them all there, posing as Margali, in order to show Margali that Nightcrawler wasn’t a bad guy. It seemed like an incredibly roundabout and risky approach.</i><br /><br />Yeah, there has to be a hundred different ways to prove Nightrawler's innocence that commandeering your mother's fake Hell and posing as her to prove your point. Heck, the courts manage to do it all the time without any elaborate Hell constructs. :) <br /><br /><i>I love how, in the Marvel Universe, Dante Alighieri ACTUALLY went to Hell.</i><br /><br />I love all that fictional stuff that actually happened in the Marvel Universe, like Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster and whatnot. <br /><br /><i>How much better a job would he have done if it was after his run on Daredevil, what with the Dire-Wraith-looking Mephisto!</i><br /><br />Agreed, this early JRjr art is worse than bad, it's boring, whereas latter day JRjr could have knocked it out of the park. <br /><br /><i>Originally, he’s just misunderstood, and everyone hates him because he’s different! Now they were after him because he snapped his brother’s neck. </i><br /><br />Good point!<br /><br /><i>Storm is like, “hey, when I was a kid, I learned how to disable burglar alarms! That means I can totally figure out this bleeding-edge medical scanning technology (that probably has alien components) without a sweat!”</i><br /><br />Another good point, and a contrivance that while overshadowed by the whole "my girlfriend/my sister" reveal, is just about as ridiculous. <br /><br /><i>The greatest thing in this comic though is the letters column and all the Dark Phoenix overflow.<br /></i><br /><br />And how odd to see a letters page in an annual? That doesn't happen too often.Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-27036767017227893092012-02-05T05:13:48.055-06:002012-02-05T05:13:48.055-06:00I never got the double fake-out: Margali built the...I never got the double fake-out: Margali built the fake Hell, but Amanda sent them all there, posing as Margali, in order to show Margali that Nightcrawler wasn’t a bad guy. It seemed like an incredibly roundabout and risky approach.<br /><br />I love how, in the Marvel Universe, Dante Alighieri ACTUALLY went to Hell. I feel like that should be an issue of S.H.I.E.L.D.<br /><br />The real disappointment is, if you told me today that JRJr was going to do a giant-size story comic of the X-Men in Hell, I would expect something really awesome. This was really tame and basically looked nothing like him except for the faces on Minos and Margali. I can understand why Claremont was never enamoured of JRJr on the title. How much better a job would he have done if it was after his run on Daredevil, what with the Dire-Wraith-looking Mephisto!<br /><br />I was also disappointed how this story thoroughly undermined the mutant panic thing in his original appearance. Originally, he’s just misunderstood, and everyone hates him because he’s different! Now they were after him because he snapped his brother’s neck. <br /><br />A lot of Claremont’s little reveals in this Annual were rather contrived too, such as when Nightcrawler falls unconscious, Storm is like, “hey, when I was a kid, I learned how to disable burglar alarms! That means I can totally figure out this bleeding-edge medical scanning technology (that probably has alien components) without a sweat!”<br /><br />Given revelations over recent years (that Mein Gott they used in First Class), my favourite part of this story though is when Doctor Strange determines that Nightcrawler is not even part-demon. If the Eye of Agamotto has spken, that’s that. And Claremont was writing Dr. Strange at the time, so it’s totally legit!<br /><br />The greatest thing in this comic though is the letters column and all the Dark Phoenix overflow.Nathan Adlerhttp://fanfix.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-88278497503590890792012-01-13T11:30:42.201-06:002012-01-13T11:30:42.201-06:00@Blam: When she basically became Kitty Pryde with ...@Blam: <i>When she basically became Kitty Pryde with Rogue's powers in the first X-Men movie, it just weirded me out.<br /></i><br /><br />You know, I've never thought of it this way before, that pretty much is the zenith of the "de-aging" of Rogue, isn't it? <br /><br /><i>I think that all references to a character's age after their debut are a bad idea, given the serialized / sliding-scale nature of most superhero universes, as are even references to a particular date; they just poke holes at the bubble of illusion at best and create actual narrative problems at worst.</i><br /><br />Agreed. At best, we should only ever get vague references to characters age/the amount of time that's passed since event "X" (no pun intended).Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-24535751733174636602012-01-08T20:04:32.912-06:002012-01-08T20:04:32.912-06:00I don't want to get into a long treatise on th...<br>I don't want to get into a long treatise on the phenomenon here, but I think that all references to a character's age after their debut are a bad idea, given the serialized / sliding-scale nature of most superhero universes, as are even references to a particular date; they just poke holes at the bubble of illusion at best and create actual narrative problems at worst.<br /><br />VW: <i>TopoLido</i> — Pool attraction featuring Aquaman's octopus buddy at the Super Friends amusement park.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-78576799909985327202012-01-08T20:00:20.973-06:002012-01-08T20:00:20.973-06:00Matt: Rogue was apparently supposed to be like 18 ...<br>Matt: <i>Rogue was apparently supposed to be like 18 for most of Claremont's run, but she always looked and acted like a woman in her 20's -- except in her first appearance where she looked to be about 60!</i><br /><br />She definitely looked at least middle-aged when she debuted and quite adult thereafter. It made no sense to me when she started getting drawn as less matronly and progressively younger and hotter in the comics (insofar as drawings are "hot" and with the understanding that juxtaposing "matronly" with "younger and hotter" is not intended to cast aspersions on the attractiveness of women of childbearing age <i>per se</i>). When she basically became Kitty Pryde with Rogue's powers in the first <i>X-Men</i> movie, it just weirded me out.<br /><br />VW: <i>MaterShi</i> — The Pixar / Billy Tucci Amalgam I don't want to see.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-68802742201148004112012-01-08T19:53:29.816-06:002012-01-08T19:53:29.816-06:00mortsleam: Jimaine just cast a spell that prevente...<br>mortsleam: <i>Jimaine just cast a spell that prevented Nightcrawler from recognizing her even though she didn't change her physical appearance</i><br /><br />I hadn't thought about it that way, but it works for me. <br /><br />mortsleam: <i>because magic that's why.</i><br /><br />Well, yeah, duh on that. 8^)<br /><br />VW: <i>Dropo</i> — Joan's mutant supervillain who makes it impossible for you to hold on to things.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-79309938017920300192012-01-06T14:04:59.787-06:002012-01-06T14:04:59.787-06:00@mortsleam: I don't want to really get into it...@mortsleam: <i>I don't want to really get into it, because it's long and involved and uses Excel spreadsheets, but according to my "TV Seasons" type breakdown alluded to above, approximately 17 years have passed since the first issue of X-Men, making Cyclops 32 or 33. </i><br /><br />Needless to say, I love that you have spreadsheets mapping all that out. <br /><br /><i>Jimaine just cast a spell that prevented Nightcrawler from recognizing her even though she didn't change her physical appearance because magic that's why. </i><br /><br />Haha! Fair enough. I like it.Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-24272506860532558412012-01-05T17:30:19.493-06:002012-01-05T17:30:19.493-06:00I don't want to really get into it, because it...I don't want to really get into it, because it's long and involved and uses Excel spreadsheets, but according to my "TV Seasons" type breakdown alluded to above, approximately 17 years have passed since the first issue of X-Men, making Cyclops 32 or 33. Maybe slightly older, I haven't had the nerve to try and figure out where exactly the last few years of X-Men stories fit in the Nu Marvel Continuity-Lite.<br /><br />21 year olds were a bit more mature in the early 80s than they are nowadays I think. If that helps. <br /><br />Jimaine just cast a spell that prevented Nightcrawler from recognizing her even though she didn't change her physical appearance because magic that's why. <br /><br />--mortsleamAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-29348676252270028832012-01-05T16:01:48.111-06:002012-01-05T16:01:48.111-06:00@Matt: Claremont tended to write everyone like an ...@Matt: <i>Claremont tended to write everyone like an adult, regardless of their age. I don't mean in terms of maturity, but in terms of using expressions and language that kids or teens just wouldn't use</i><br /><br />That's a good point. And, let's be honest, very few comic book writers can do authentic teen dialogue well. <br /><br /><i>Rogue was apparently supposed to be like 18 for most of Claremont's run, but she always looked and acted like a woman in her 20's -- except in her first appearance where she looked to be about 60!</i><br /><br />That's one of the things that's always bugged me about her first appearance: she comes across as so old there that as a result, she seems to de-age throughout her history, going from a middle age woman to a 20-something to a late teen/early 20s when Jim Lee takes over. <br /><br /><i>This would be corroborated by Fabian Nicieza's subplot where Beast, the oldest of the original X-Men, turned 30 years old. </i><br /><br />Maybe it was because that seemed SO OLD to me then, or because the X-Men's 30th anniversary was just around the corner, but that always felt right to me. Circa the mid 90s, I always figured the X-Men were generally in their late 20s/early 30s, with the New Mutants-turned-X-Force characters in their late teens/early 20s, and the Generation X kids in their teens. <br /><br />And you can add 5-10 years to those break downs and slot in the New X-Men kids beneath the Gen Xers nowadays and it still works. I totally picture the Cyclops running Utopia as being in his late 30s.Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-70467491624487965222012-01-05T11:32:06.736-06:002012-01-05T11:32:06.736-06:00I've always read the X-Men characters as older...I've always read the X-Men characters as older than they're actually intended to be. The exception is Colossus, who, for whatever reason, I can buy as 18 years old at this time. Byrne drew him with a bit of a baby face (square jawed though he was), so that helped. But in general, I would think most of the "new" team ranged from their early to mid-20's, with the obvious exceptions of Banshee and Wolverine.<br /><br />I think part of the reason they skew older in my interpretation is that Claremont tended to write everyone like an adult, regardless of their age. I don't mean in terms of maturity, but in terms of using expressions and language that kids or teens just wouldn't use (this is for the best, though, since when he did try his hand at "typical" teenage dialogue, it tended to be pretty darn awful...).<br /><br />The art doesn't always sell it, either. Rogue was apparently supposed to be like 18 for most of Claremont's run, but she always looked and acted like a woman in her 20's -- except in her first appearance where she looked to be about 60!<br /><br />The same goes for a lot of other characters in the X-Men too, both during and after the Claremont run. Mark Waid once had Cyclops declare that he was only 25 years old in an issue around the time of "Onslaught". I was 16 or 17 at the time, so 25 seemed like a lifetime away at that point, but I still couldn't buy it. In my mind, the Cyclops of the post-Claremont era was in his late 20's, if not 30 years old. This would be corroborated by Fabian Nicieza's subplot where Beast, the oldest of the original X-Men, turned 30 years old.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-42179040466400635532012-01-05T11:10:49.589-06:002012-01-05T11:10:49.589-06:00@Blam: That could well be intentional so that it s...@Blam: <i>That could well be intentional so that it shows up along with the issues that surround it if folks click on said label, but just in case it was a habit or carryover or something I thought I'd let you know.</i><br /><br />Yeah, it was intentional, my thought being that way it would show up in the appropriate place during the run even though Byrne didn't draw it (and I went back and checked that I'd done the same thing for annual #3). <br /><br />But I go back and forth on the practice. Specifically, I haven't decided if #144 will get tagged with Claremont/Cockrum II, or if I'll wait to apply that to #145, Cockrum's actual return. <br /><br />I feel like fill-in issues/annuals during runs deserve the tag, just to keep things flowing, but fill-ins that precede/follow runs I'm not too sure about. <br /><br />Either way, I should probably be consistent: either the tag strictly refers to the writer/artist combo, or is more concerned with grouping chunks of the X-Men story together, regardless of occasional fill-ins or other deviations from the label. <br /><br />And, of course, I'm worrying far too much about something that will probably never be used, but hey, I'm an anal retentive geek like that. :)Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-56766174520023344012012-01-05T10:45:47.205-06:002012-01-05T10:45:47.205-06:00Teebore: I LOVE that Romita (or possibly McLeod) t...<br>Teebore: <i>I LOVE that Romita (or possibly McLeod) took the time to draw in the beer spray. Wolverine's so upset he's even WASTING BEER! </i><br /><br />Hadn't even thought of <i>that</i>... I just envisioned the "next" panel, a split-second later, with Kitty doused and going all (justifiably) what-her-sequined-shirt-in-#138-said. "Ugh! The gross little hairy man got beer in my hair!" And that said this still isn't my favorite sequence in an <i>X-Men</i> annual involving Logan drinking beer; that honor falls to what's probably the only annual I bought after dropping the series in 1985, either 'cause someone recommended it or I simply took a chance on the Alan Davis loveliness.<br /><br />You have this post labeled "Claremont/Byrne", by the way. That could well be intentional so that it shows up along with the issues that surround it if folks click on said label, but just in case it was a habit or carryover or something I thought I'd let you know. <i>-- Bookkeepin' Blam</i><br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-21697339860189219012012-01-04T15:28:53.545-06:002012-01-04T15:28:53.545-06:00@Blam: I'm pretty sure that if I'd include...@Blam: <i>I'm pretty sure that if I'd included this issue in the many rereads I did of this era of the title over the next couple of decades, it would stick out as more of a dud</i><br /><br />That what really sinks it for me (putting aside the whole Amanda retcon): the unfortunate timing of falling right after "Dark Phoenix" and before "Days of Future Past". It's certainly not awful, as Super Lad Kid asserted, and is, as Chris said, a one-off Bronze Age kinda story, but it really suffers in comparison to the stuff going on in the main book at the time, such that whenever I read it as part of the run, it just takes the whole thing down a notch. <br /><br /><i>Logan — who's apparently gone through a half-dozen beers while Xavier runs tests on Nightcrawler — crunches his can and sprays what's inside towards an oblivious Kitty. </i><br /><br />I LOVE that Romita (or possibly McLeod) took the time to draw in the beer spray. Wolverine's so upset he's even WASTING BEER! <br /><br /><i>...but I certainly never read him as that young (especially after I got to an age where I realized how young that was)...I just always saw this group as older than the original X-Men were when they began, thanks to both implicit characterization/plotting and some explicit mentions in the script.</i> <br /><br />Ditto. I'm always taken aback by that when I read this issue too. I've always viewed the new X-Men (other than Banshee) at this time as being mid-to-late 20s contemporaries with the original X-Men, with Peter, on the young end, and Logan, on the older end, being the exceptions (and even then, while still contemporaries, I could easily see a case being made that Nightcrawler and Storm, especially, are perhaps even a bit older than the original X-Men).<br /><br /><i>Don't you just want to swap out the 'm' in "Bamf!" with another consonant five letters down the alphabet?</i><br /><br />Ha! Indeed. Though I won't lie: I intentionally wrote that sentence to come across as barf-inducing as possible. <br /><br /><i>What I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is that if Jimaine alters her face as Amanda, then she's put Kurt — both of them, really — in the supremely awkward position of one major aspect of Kurt's current girlfriend being a fabrication that he presumably appreciated (he may not have necessarily found Amanda prettier than Jimaine, but still); if she doesn't alter her face as Amanda, then Kurt's just stupid.</i><br /><br />Well said. I've never considered that before (comic book facial art being fairly generic), but you're right: either Amanda wears a different face (which makes the whole thing even more unnecessarily complicated/poorly thought out) or Nightcrawler is especially dumb. <br /><br /><i>Did you know that among the mystic arts mastered by Strange was the power to speak parenthetically? </i><br /><br />Ha! I was so taken aback by the quaintness of the comic book's desire to educate its readers that I totally missed Dr. Strange speaking in parentheticals.<br /><br /><i>I looked up "pander" and there are definitions of the word as a noun — one, dated, is "pimp"; another, noted as archaic, is "a person who assists the baser urges or evil designs of others:" </i><br /><br />Huh. I'll definitely add that to the list of words comic books have taught me. <br /><br />And that's one to grow on!Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-77569348271032642432012-01-04T15:13:39.435-06:002012-01-04T15:13:39.435-06:00@Matt: So... pretty Bondian stuff right from the g...@Matt: <i>So... pretty Bondian stuff right from the get-go!</i><br /><br />Huh. Well then, I stand corrected. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Stan is just as capable of coming up with some crazy stuff as anyone, if not moreso...<br /><br /><i>Yes, I am a bigger Spider-Man nerd than I am an X-Men nerd...</i><br /><br />Well, it's good to know that if I ever find the time/resources to expand out and do posts similar to these for the Avengers and Spider-Man, I'd have at least one Spider-Man reader...<br /><br />@Super Lad Kid: <i>The reveal doesn't seem very well though out, and I am curious about any long term plans this reveal may have had. </i><br /><br />Yeah, the reveal definitely begs all those questions you asked. I honestly don't know if Claremont had any long term plans for the reveal. Obviously, with Byrne not liking the idea, Amanda gets no play while he's still on the title, but even after that, Claremont does little with the character and, aside from a few turns helping out the team here and there, unfortunately offers no good explanation for her not contributing more often beyond the general idea that she's a stewardess and thus not around all the time. <br /><br />Apparently, when you're the X-Men, you won't take all the help you can get. :) <br /><br />@Michael:<i>Either way, she isn't invited to join the team on panel, at least not to my knowledge. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.)</i><br /><br />Nor to my knowledge, either. <br /><br /><i>"I thought our mom might attack you someday, so instead of coming to you as Jimaine long ago, I decided to create a false identity and lie to you." </i><br /><br />"And also, I brought you and your friends into my mom's recreation of Hell in order to force a confrontation of the issue." <br /><br />No sense indeed...<br /><br />Dr. Bitz: <i>Seriously, though, I am curious which issues of Doctor Strange Claremont wrote. I never paid attention to the writer when reading them.</i> <br /><br />@Pete Wodehouse: <i>The Doctor Strange Claremont run was approx #40-50, 1980-81-ish (Colan left on issue 47 I'm pretty sure).</i><br /><br />A (very) quick internet search tells me it was just issues #38-45 (of his second series). <br /><br />@Dr. Bitz: <i>I also take exception to the idea that Nightmare is Doctor Strange's "archenemy." </i><br /><br />I've always put him third on the list, behind Dormammu and Baron Mordo. Whether that constitutes "archenemy" status...I don't know. But I'll certainly defer to you on the matter. <br /><br /><i>Speaking of which, do you think Claremont wanted Nightmare to be Nightcrawler's father simply because they both had "night" in their name? I wouldn't put it past him.... </i><br /><br />I'm 98% sure that's at least where the idea originated...<br /><br />@Chris: <i>Also is story takes place after Jean's funeral and Cyclops leaving, so why's Wolverine still in his old uniform and where's Angel?</i><br /><br />Those are pretty much the two things that make this slot in before #139, time-wise, even though it was published after it. <br /><br /><i>I went back read them (two of them right?) beside heroic spotlights for a depowered Storm and Wolverine, they were both New Mutants adventures guest starring the X-men. The Asgard one is still enjoyable nonetheless but the whole Longshot/Mojo thing I can't get into. </i><br /><br />There were four, total (the two you mentioned, as well as #12 (an "Evolutionary War" tie-in) and #14 (part of "Days of Future Present", the first outright sequel to "Days of Future Past)). <br /><br />I'll grant that the stories of all four are nothing spectacular (though Annual #9, the Asgard one, <i>is</i> one of my favorites, but I also like the New Mutants), but I'm a big enough fan of Art Adams that his presence alone elevates them above all other annuals.Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-10206115697381203732012-01-04T13:59:20.974-06:002012-01-04T13:59:20.974-06:00Teebore: And then it's not enough that Nightcr...<br> Teebore: <i>And then it's not enough that Nightcrawler's stewardess girlfriend is also his sister and childhood sweetheart, but she also has to be a sorceress.</i><br /><br />I'm aware that there's been plenty of commenting upon this point, but I just want to draw attention again to those words "sister and childhood sweetheart". Don't you just want to swap out the 'm' in "Bamf!" with another consonant five letters down the alphabet?<br /><br />Roger Stern (quoted): <i>Chris had come up with the latest of several crazy ideas and declared that Nightcrawler's father was [Dr. Strange archenemy] Nightmare. And I replied with something like, 'No, he's not. I'm not going to let you appropriate one of my character's major villains.' As I recall, Len Wein crossed the room and shook my hand.</i><br /><br />That is <i>classic</i>. I don't ever recall hearing about the Nightmare thing, and I certainly don't remember hearing this anecdote, which is just priceless.<br /><br />Matt: <i>Why did Amanda have to be Jimaine? Why not create a new character? It just comes across as sloppy, unnecessary complication for complication's sake.</i><br /><br />Even more than that, it's <i>creepy</i> — and the part where he fell in love with his adoptive sister <i>is arguably not the creepiest part!</i> How on Earth is hiding your true identity from your childhood sweetheart (I'm just letting the fact that they were raised as siblings slide for a moment) a good idea? This ain't Shakespeare, which I don't mean in the usual sense of it not measuring up to the bard's standards of plotting or dialogue, but in the sense that at least when these kinds of weird masquerades pop up in Shakespeare there's a reason for it, like an identity that must remain hidden (a royal as a servant, a woman as a man, <i>etc.</i>). Here Jimaine is just screwing with Kurt. What I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is that if Jimaine alters her face as Amanda, then she's put Kurt — both of them, really — in the supremely awkward position of one major aspect of Kurt's current girlfriend being a fabrication that he presumably appreciated (he may not have necessarily found Amanda prettier than Jimaine, but still); if she <i>doesn't</i> alter her face as Amanda, then <i>Kurt's just stupid.</i><br /><br />Dr. Bitz: <i>I also take exception to the idea that Nightmare is Doctor Strange's "archenemy."</i><br /><br />Early on he was certainly in the running for the title, or at least the equivalent of say The Riddler to Batman in Doctor Strange's rogues gallery, but I'd give the nod for actual "archenemy" to Dormammu or Baron Mordo.<br /><br />I never realized that this was John Romita Jr.'s first X-Men job. Not that I thought he drew them earlier, just that I'm not sure I've even read this issue since his actual run on the title from <i>X-Men</i> #176 to whenever, and didn't recall that he'd drawn it / drawn the team before that run.<br /><br />Did you know that among the mystic arts mastered by Strange was the power to speak parenthetically? "Here," quoth the Sorcerer Supreme, "you'll find panders* and seducers, flatterers, simonists <i>(churchmen who use their holy office for personal gain)</i>, diviners <i>(false prophets)</i>, frauds and con-artists, hypocrites, thieves..." <br /><br />[*At first I thought that this was a typo for "panderers" but I looked up "pander" and there are definitions of the word as a noun — one, dated, is "pimp"; another, noted as archaic, is "a person who assists the baser urges or evil designs of others:" In the pantheon of words learned from comic books, it's no "friction" or "invulnerable", but, y'know <i>Hey! Impress your Sunday-school teacher!</i>]<br /><br />VW: <i>chirk</i> — An obnoxious little bird.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-62241543981504814302012-01-04T13:48:27.474-06:002012-01-04T13:48:27.474-06:00I don't carry the vitriol for this issue that ...<br>I don't carry the vitriol for this issue that some fans apparently do — or so I'm learning now — but that may be because I've only tangentially recalled the cover and plot beats. <br /><br />While it's certainly substandard, to a 10-year-old kid the overriding sentiment was "Cool! More X-Men — and they're with Doctor Strange!" Although I grant that 10-year-old kids were not necessarily Claremont's primary audience as he was writing, and it was beginning to become true at this time that they were losing status as the comic-book industry's primary audience on the whole.<br /><br />I'm pretty sure that if I'd included this issue in the many rereads I did of this era of the title over the next couple of decades, it would stick out as more of a dud — and make no mistake, the Amanda / Jimaine thing <i>has</i> always been weird — but I've traditionally filed annuals at the end of my run of a title, pulling them out only when they're relevant to the ongoing story or to research.<br /><br />Teebore: <i>Nightcrawler is celebrating his 21st birthday as the issue opens, and his presents hilariously include a framed picture of Wolverine (wearing his mask).</i> <br /><br />I love that. Lots of bits in the opening sequence were funny, intentionally or otherwise. <br /><br />Kurt also got a questionable shirt plus tie, binoculars, barbells (since the mansion doesn't have workout equipment or anything), and a Stetson.<br /><br />Of course the picture of Wolverine just about takes the cake — no birthday-eats pun intended. The absurdity works because Logan still had a bit of the Ben Grimm personality about him at the time. I couldn't see the scene flying with Byrne drawing it, but with Cockrum it would have and with Romita's rather nondescript art here it does as well.<br /><br />After Kurt is rendered "no longer... alive," however, comes my favorite panel, as Logan — who's apparently gone through a half-dozen beers while Xavier runs tests on Nightcrawler — crunches his can and sprays what's inside towards an oblivious Kitty. <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/112544365095293670244/XMen?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrc8MaBitXidQ#5693865354731515794" rel="nofollow">Check it out</a> and try not to be mesmerized by Peter's facepalm, which gets more compellingly ugly the longer you look at it.<br /><br />I won't go so far as to say that I don't <i>buy</i> Kurt only turning 21, but I certainly never read him as that young (especially after I got to an age where I realized how young that was). He and Peter do come across as more-or-less contemporaries, true, and I think that Peter was only supposed to be about 5 years older than the going-on-14 Kitty; I just always saw this group as older than the original X-Men were when they began, thanks to both implicit characterization/plotting and some explicit mentions in the script.<br /><br />VW: <i>explo</i> — A dynamite convention.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-31434211633454854852012-01-03T19:37:27.314-06:002012-01-03T19:37:27.314-06:00Dr Bitz said: "I am curious which issues of D...Dr Bitz said: "I am curious which issues of Doctor Strange Claremont wrote. I never paid attention to the writer when reading them."<br />The Doctor Strange Claremont run was approx #40-50, 1980-81-ish (Colan left on issue 47 I'm pretty sure). I don't know if Roger Stern on his acclaimed run immediately succeeded Claremont or if there was a fill-in or two.Pete Woodhousenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-39450407215796933062012-01-03T08:42:51.792-06:002012-01-03T08:42:51.792-06:00I consider this annual a one-off bronze age-ish X-...I consider this annual a one-off bronze age-ish X-Men tale, the kind we won't see much more of from here on, not great but I still sort of enjoy it. JR Jr. art, once he was the regular penciler never appealed to me, but in this annual I can tolerate it, not as stylized as it became. So aside from the confused she'e s my sister/she's my girlfriend angle(imagine trying to make sense of that when your a little kid!), it's a nice introduction to Dante.<br /><br />Also is story takes place after Jean's funeral and Cyclops leaving, so why's Wolverine still in his old uniform and where's Angel?<br /><br />I have a respectfully disagree about the Art Adams annuals; I went back read them (two of them right?) beside heroic spotlights for a depowered Storm and Wolverine, they were both New Mutants adventures guest starring the X-men. The Asgard one is still enjoyable nonetheless but the whole Longshot/Mojo thing I can't get into.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13066873171972229134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-72800154330708972552012-01-02T15:58:50.349-06:002012-01-02T15:58:50.349-06:00First of all, this issue has Doctor Strange which ...First of all, this issue has Doctor Strange which automatically makes it one of the best in the X-Men series.<br /><br />Seriously, though, I am curious which issues of Doctor Strange Claremont wrote. I never paid attention to the writer when reading them.<br /><br />I also take exception to the idea that Nightmare is Doctor Strange's "archenemy." Speaking of which, do you think Claremont wanted Nightmare to be Nightcrawler's father simply because they both had "night" in their name? I wouldn't put it past him....Dr. Bitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13568570859981368717noreply@blogger.com