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Thursday, January 13, 2022

X-amining X-Force #62

"
Human Nature"
January 1997

In a Nutshell
X-Force foils a plot involving Shinobi Shaw and Karma's younger siblings. 

Writer: John Dokes
Penciler: Kevin Lau with Adam Pollina
Inker: Andrew Pepoy with Norman Lee
Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Colorist: Le Ann Clark 
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras

Plot
Shinobi Shaw has abducted Leong and Nga Coy Mahn, twin siblings of former New Mutant Karma, and is using them as test subjects for a machine intended to turn mutants into regular humans. Led by Domino, X-Force infiltrates his base, but one of Shaw's mercenaries, Mindmeld, uses her power to swap the minds of Domino and Meltdown with Caliban and Sunspot; the resulting disorientation is enough for X-Force to be captured and rendered powerless via inhibitor collars. Shinobi then offers Sunspot a place in his Inner Circle, but Sunspot turns it down just as Spiral teleports into the base and absconds with Leong and Nga. Just then, another mercenary working for Shaw, Clear-Cut, turns on him, helping X-Force escape and restoring Domino and Meltdown's minds to their own bodies. In the ensuing battle, X-Force manages to destroy Shinobi's machine, though Shinobi escapes. In the aftermath, Clear-Cut tells Domino to let Cable know his debt to him is paid in full. 

Firsts and Other Notables
Karma's younger twin siblings, Leong and Nga, appear in this issue, their first appearance since New Mutants #46 (the point at which they disappeared, which eventually prompted Karma's departure from the New Mutants and into (relative) comic book limbo. No word is given here about how they went from whomever kidnapped them originally (in a story that predates Shinobi Shaw's existence) to in Shinobi's custody here, though in the end, they are teleported away by Spiral, which is setup for the upcoming Beast limited series, which will return to their story. 


Believe it or not, this is Shinobi Shaw's last appearance until 2009's "X-Necrosha" event, a pretty remarkable fall for a villain who was clearly presented as a big deal for a hot minute or two. I guess that's what happens when the character you were meant to upstart comes back from the dead and takes over all the plots you ordinarily would have been involved in. 

This issue represents the first - and, to date, last - appearances of Clear-Cut and Mindmeld, two mercenaries seemingly in the employ of Shinobi Shaw. 


Adam Pollina makes a quiet return to the series, turning in a few pages in this issue. Meanwhile, near as I can tell, this is the only writing credit for John Dokes. 

A Work in Progress
Meltdown remarks on the recent changes experienced by Sunspot (the whole Reignfire thing) and Shatterstar (the Benjamin Russell mishegas). 


The Cable Guy 
Clear-Cut has some kind of past with Cable, owing him a debt he considers paid after helping out X-Force here; no further details have been revealed. 


It's in the Mail
The upcoming Domino miniseries is mentioned in the letters page (it's starting to feel around this time like the regular series' are just long-form ads for the constant stream of minis). There's also a letter which asks about the characters ages, the response to which says that everyone aside from Cable, Domino, and Caliban are in their late teens.

Jeph Loeb on leaving the X-Office
Jeph Loeb: "When Fabian [Nicieza] left, and X-Men became free… He wrote X-Men, Scott [Lobdell] wrote Uncanny X-Men, but the idea was that Scott was going to go to X-Men, which at the time was a better-selling title by, like, 500 copies, and I would go on Uncanny X-Men. That’s what I’d always thought was going to happen. And Bob [Harras] gave the assignment to Mark Waid, which was very, very hard for me to understand, and [was] the beginning of the decline of our relationship.

Brian Lamken: "Yours and Bob Harras’s?”

Loeb: “Or mine and Marvel’s. It sort-of came to a culmination with my leaving to go to do 'Heroes Reborn'. To be honest, I’d told [my] Cable and X-Force stories, and I’d really, really wanted to write The Uncanny X-Men. And once it was apparent that I was not going to write The Uncanny X-Men, I could tell that my heart was going to go out of [working in the X-Office] and that it was time for me to say goodbye. That was hard for a lot of people to understand. I’d been the first writer on Cable who’d stayed for any length of time; I was on there for three years, and the sales had really increased. But it was time to move on. I had a chance to do Captain America and The Avengers, and a chance to work with Rob [Liefeld] and Jim [Valentino]. It was a giant step.”

Stefan Blitz & Brian Saner Lamken. “A Shot in the Dark — Jeph Loeb: The Comicology Interview.” Comicology Vol. II #1, Pgs. 7-33 [Side B]. Raleigh: TwoMorrows Publishing, Spring 2000.

Austin's Analysis
For the most part, this is an understandable fill-in issue killing some time following the departure of Jeph Loeb. It briefly even seems like it might go somewhere interesting, highlighting the recent changes in Sunspot and Shatterstar and then doing a classic body swap, suggesting we might get something a little character driven as the four "swapped" heroes experience events through someone else's body. A standard comic book plot device, but there's worse ideas to build a fill-in issue around. 

That never quite happens though, and instead, the issue focuses on a pair of laughably 90s one-off characters (one of whom even has a mysterious past with Cable) and, weirdly, sets up the upcoming Beast limited series which, even more weirdly, circles back to the fate of Karma's long-missing younger siblings (why is a Beast miniseries featuring the siblings of a character who isn't even in an X-book at the moment? Stay tuned!). I'm all in favor of returning to dangling plotlines, but doing so in a random one-off issue by a fill-in creative team seems pretty typical of this particular dangling plotline (in terms of how little attention it's been given through the years): few reading this issue are going to care about Leong and Nga, and anyone who does care, probably isn't reading this issue. 

Next Issue
Next week: Deadpool #1 and Excalibur #105!

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18 comments:

  1. I wonder if "John Dokes" is an alias, since it sounds similar to "John Doe" & could also be referencing a variant of it, "John/Joe Doakes".

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    1. I wondered about that, too.

      Possibly a pseudonym for John Francis Moore (not that I can think of a reason why he wouldn't be credited on this issue when he is credited on the next). Or, given the way this sets up the Beast mini, maybe it's Keith Giffen or Terry Kavanaugh, who write that, but why the alias? Giffen is credited in EXCALIBUR the same month as this issue.

      Unfortunately, the story and script is so blandly 90s that it's hard to discern who it could be just based on style.

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    2. If it is a pseudonym it might be for Bob Harras or whomever was editing the X-Line (Mark Powers?)at the time. Especially since it's setting up another series, even in a minor way.

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  2. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this last time but wow is it bizarre to see everything done in a passable if unremarkable art style while the girls' faces rendered in a manga style. It's more distracting than anything.

    I was reading all the X-Men books fairly regularly at this point (though it was right around here I dropped both Excalibur and X-Factor) but I have no recollection about reading this issue. Which is strange because I always remember the cover. Domino is my 4th favorite X character so I know I read this at least once.

    Revisiting it now, I enjoyed it. It's not going to win any points for originality but it's definitely stronger than half of the line that month.

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  3. Shinobi had such a weird rise (such as it was) and fall. He never felt like he was that big of a deal, but he popped up often enough that you aleways remembered he was there, and it felt like maybe he would eventually amount to something. And then he just fizzled out and vanished. Which is too bad, because I generally liked him, mainly due to X-MEN #29 fleshing him out a bit.

    The weird thing is, there was no reason he and his dad couldn't have co-existed, first as enemies, then perhaps as uneasy allies. Like, Shinobi is still running the Hellfire Club at this point, right? I know every time Sebastian shows up around this time (as in the upcoming Hong Kong trilogy in X-MEN), he seems to still be on on the outs with the club. Why not a storyline where Sebastian tries to get himself back into the organization with his new Inner Circle behind him, but they're opposed by Shinobi and his Inner Circle (whoever that might be)? Then eventually they reach an accord and Sebastian and Shinobi co-rule as the Black and White Kings or something like that, but they're constantly at each other's throats.

    I guess the problem is that this would take up a lot of sub-plot pages in the ongoing titles, plus once you resolve the conflict and get them into this status quo, where do you go from there? A writer would have to be really dedicated to some long-term stuff with the Hellfire Club to pull it off. Or you'd need a limited series to cover all of it! In any case, I would've eaten something like that up. It's exactly the sort of intrigue I love.

    So if he vanishes for over a decade, I guess it's never explained how Shinobi is deposed, right? I looked him up on the Marvel Wiki, and apparently he's just killed by Sebastian off-panel at some point, and then resurrected, per your continuity note, in "X-Necrosha". Bizarre.

    I'm trying to chart what happens with the Hellfire Club after this. I believe Selene eventually takes control, I think in Chris Claremont's FANTASTIC FOUR of all places, but I'm pretty sure that's ignored as quickly as it happens. When do we see Shaw back in command? Is during Grant Morrison's run where he randomly has telepathic powers and the club has become a strip club? I remember Shaw and Tessa showing up in the X-51 series circa 1999/2000, but I can't recall what his status quo is there.

    The 1990s were a weird/rough period for the ol' Hellfire Club. Like, the various series writers occasionally wanted to use it, but could never figure out what to do with it. I think its best use in the decade was the storyline Warren Ellis's EXCALIBUR, which wasn't even about the American branch!

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    1. The weird thing is, there was no reason he and his dad couldn't have co-existed, first as enemies, then perhaps as uneasy allies.

      Definitely. That's more or less their dynamic now in the current books.

      I'm trying to chart what happens with the Hellfire Club after this

      Like John said below, X-MAN is more or less where the Inner Circle gets reconstituted (with Selene later getting involved with the new Hellions over in X-FORCE, which is, I believe, after that CC stuff in FF), but it never quite comes back as the force it was once was.

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    2. Oh yeah, I noticed that with Shinobi, too. He was around constantly, yet they made sure we, the fans, never feared nor respected him. Fabian in particular seemed to delight in humiliating him- in "The Younghunt", X-Force attacked him in the TUB and got him to give up the entire plan.

      I think part of it's because the Upstarts were all created by the "prior generation", and so Fabian & Scott were handed these guys they didn't create, nor have an emotional investment in, and so they were easily discarded. Look at how badly both writers treated Trevor Fitzroy (he kills the entire Hellions and in subsequent issues the X-Men easily trounce him again and again- Colossus nearly murdering him in a rage and X-Force tricking him into absorbing his own lifeforce!).

      So the Upstarts turn into a total job squad losing to everyone rapid-fire, despite Shinobi appearing every couple of months in some "manipulator" role. It didn't help that in retrospect they were making him bisexual as a way to make him seem extra-hedonistic, in something that wouldn't age well.

      But yeah, they really could have done something with him and his dad.

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  4. Doesn't Xman set up a new inner circle with Fitzroy and Madeline Pryor. I can't remember if Selene was involved in it though but her Hellfire Club recruits Sunspot later on in Xforce and I think that kind of got picked up in Xtreme.

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  5. Boomer* has dialogue that reads “Now, Mr. or Mrs. Mindmeld — What is your real name? Pat? Chris?” It feels strongly like a reference to the character’s apparently indeterminate gender by way of Julia Sweeney’s Pat sketches on SNL, although obviously Pat and Chris are among several (nick)names that could traditionally be used by anyone. How well that humor has aged is a whole other thing… [*Sorry, Meltdown.]

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    1. Woof, totally missed that. And yeah, that humor has...not aged well.

      [*Sorry, Meltdown.]

      Hahahaha

      Delete
  6. Hi y'all. I've fell back hard in my reading and commenting.

    It's only that literally a minute ago I got where the once Spider-Man villains Styx&Stone got their common moniker, and thought that you guys should hear.

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    1. Teemu! I was just wondering whatever had happened to you a few days ago, because I couldn't recall any posts from you here in some time. Glad you're doing well.

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  7. Do you know why Jeph Loeb stopped writing X-force?

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    1. He's working on the "Heroes Reborn" books right around the time of his departures (first CAPTAIN AMERICA and AVENGERS, then IRON MAN), so he presumably left X-FORCE (and CABLE) to work on those. After that, he moves over to DC for "Batman: Long Halloween" and gets involved in the Superman office, before coming back to Marvel in the early 00s to do the Color books and some other stuff.

      Delete

    2. Jeph Loeb on leaving the X-Office

      Loeb: “When Fabian [Nicieza] left, and X-Men became free… He wrote X-Men, Scott [Lobdell] wrote Uncanny X-Men, but the idea was that Scott was going to go to X-Men, which at the time was a better-selling title by, like, 500 copies, and I would go on Uncanny X-Men. That’s what I’d always thought was going to happen. And Bob [Harras] gave the assignment to Mark Waid, which was very, very hard for me to understand, and [was] the beginning of the decline of our relationship.”

      Me: “Yours and Bob Harras’s?”

      Loeb: “Or mine and Marvel’s. It sort-of came to a culmination with my leaving to go to do Heroes Reborn. To be honest, I’d told [my] Cable and X-Force stories, and I’d really, really wanted to write The Uncanny X-Men. And once it was apparent that I was not going to write The Uncanny X-Men, I could tell that my heart was going to go out of [working in the X-Office] and that it was time for me to say goodbye. That was hard for a lot of people to understand. I’d been the first writer on Cable who’d stayed for any length of time; I was on there for three years, and the sales had really increased. But it was time to move on. I had a chance to do Captain America and The Avengers, and a chance to work with Rob [Liefeld] and Jim [Valentino]. It was a giant step.”

      Stefan Blitz & Brian Saner Lamken. “A Shot in the Dark — Jeph Loeb: The Comicology Interview.” Comicology Vol. II #1, Pgs. 7-33 [Side B]. Raleigh: TwoMorrows Publishing, Spring 2000.

      Delete
    3. Thanks for that, Blam! Now I'm wondering if this is why Loeb co-wrote the "Crimson Dawn" 2-parter in UNCANNY. I thought it was really weird at the time. But those were the February and March of 1996 issues, and Waid's first X-MEN was the April '96 installment. Meanwhile, Lobdell was writing X-MEN from the moment Nicieza left, a few months earlier. So based on all that, it's easy to extrapolate from Loeb's comments that Lobdell would've just dropped UNCANNY and continued on X-MEN, while after co-writing those two issues, Loeb would've continued on UNCANNY solo.

      I wonder why Harras went with Waid instead? Maybe just a combination of availability and a higher profile? Knowing of Harras's utter lack of transparency with freelancers, I could imaging he was telling Loeb he would get UNCANNY while also courting Waid on the side as a longshot. Then when Waid accepted the assignment, Loeb was left out in the cold.

      Doesn't explain why Lobdell wound up staying on UNCANNY, but I'm sure that was just some kind of logistics thing.

      In any case, given how quickly Waid left, I can't help wondering what things might've looked like if Loeb had gotten the job after all. He seemed to do a decent job on CABLE and X-FORCE, and I think he was more willing to "play along" with the editorial edicts of the X-Office. I actually wouldn't mind seeing what his X-MEN run would've looked like circa the mid-90s. But I guess it's something to chalk up as a missed connection.

      (Though we also might've gotten the [shudder] "Wolverine and Sabretooth are descended from literal wolves" story a decade earlier, so maybe it's for the best.)

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    4. Thanks for that Blam! I cut it into the post itself as well.

      Delete

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