In a Nutshell
Professor X and Magneto reunite on the verge of their philosophical differences exploding into open conflict.
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Plot
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Pencils: Carlos Pacheco
Inks: Art Thibert
Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Colorist: Chris Lichtner & Aron Lusen
Inks: Art Thibert
Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Colorist: Chris Lichtner & Aron Lusen
Associate Editor: Mark Powers
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Plot
At his mansion, Charles Xavier continues his physical therapy, under the guidance of his nurse/girlfriend, Amelia Voght. She urges him to rethink his plans regarding mutantkind, but he insists they can't simply hide in his mansion and do nothing. He then asks her to teleport him to the remains of concentration camp in Europe, where he knows his old friend Erik will soon appear. Meanwhile, aboard Asteroid M in orbit around the planet, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff discuss their recent alliance with the man known as Magneto Despite having saved their lives, Pietro remains unconvinced Magneto is a good man. Magneto arrives and brings the twins down to the concentration camp, where he finds Xavier and Voght waiting. The two former friends each try to convince each other, for the last time, to give up their respective plans to chart the course of mutantkind's future, with Xavier arguing that places like the concentration camp will rise again if Magneto launches his war on humanity. Both men acknowledge their ability to kill the other, but leave each other in peace for the last time, with Magneto declaring there will be only one onclusion to their conflict, and to the victor will go the spoils. He then scoops up a handful of earth, and returns with the Maximoffs to Asteroid M.
Firsts and Other Notables
The bookend/Stan Lee portion of this Flashback Month issue involves Lee touring the Marvel Bullpen, which gives Carlos Pacheco the opportunity to draw himself.
Firsts and Other Notables
The bookend/Stan Lee portion of this Flashback Month issue involves Lee touring the Marvel Bullpen, which gives Carlos Pacheco the opportunity to draw himself.
He also gets to do a fun "original X-Men/current X-Men" group shot as Lee gives readers a tour of X-Men history.
The events of this issue are set in the middle of the Amelia Voght flashback in Uncanny X-Men #309, with Voght still on hand at the X-Mansion with Xavier, before she leaves him.
On the Magneto side of things, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have been rescued by Magneto and taken to Asteroid M, but this is before the full-fledged Brotherhood has formed.
A Work in Progress
Quicksilver gets mad at Magneto for talking to him like a disapproving father. Get it? It's funny cuz he IS Quicksilver's father (at least at that moment)!
Xavier notes that Magneto's experience in the Holocaust retarded the development of his powers (which is why they didn't emerge until well into his adulthood, as opposed to during adolescence),
Also worth noting: there's some discussion of Magneto's helmet (this is the first time Xavier sees him wearing it), and also, Xavier's ability to reach in and turn off his mind; this is before the idea of Magneto's helmet blocking Xavier's telepathy made its way into the comics from the 2000 X-Men movie.
Artistic Achievements
During Stan's tour, Pacheco puts some quick cover recreation sketches on one of the walls. I can see X-Men #16, X-Men #101, X-Men #62, Uncanny X-Men #234, Uncanny X-Men #173, X-Men #94, and X-Men #111.
There's a silent panel in this issue that is one of those I see pop up online in articles and such a lot.
Austin's Analysis
We're not quite in Classic Claremont Quiet Issue territory — this isn't coming in the wake of a significant story, nor is it a collection of character-focused vignettes — but X-Men (vol. 2) #-1 is a pretty close approximation to one in terms of being light on action and plot. I've always been of two minds on this issue. People standing around talking doesn't exactly play to Pacheco's strengths, especially at this point in his career. It's also not only light on plot, but light on specificity; Xavier and Magneto don't really say anything of consequence; readers can infer from the history of the book and these characters what they're talking about it, but it wouldn't hurt — simply in the interest of drama — for the dialogue to be a bit more specific.
We're not quite in Classic Claremont Quiet Issue territory — this isn't coming in the wake of a significant story, nor is it a collection of character-focused vignettes — but X-Men (vol. 2) #-1 is a pretty close approximation to one in terms of being light on action and plot. I've always been of two minds on this issue. People standing around talking doesn't exactly play to Pacheco's strengths, especially at this point in his career. It's also not only light on plot, but light on specificity; Xavier and Magneto don't really say anything of consequence; readers can infer from the history of the book and these characters what they're talking about it, but it wouldn't hurt — simply in the interest of drama — for the dialogue to be a bit more specific.
On the other hand, that lack of specificity lends an air of inevitability to the whole thing (which is reinforced by the fact this is a prequel foreshadowing events we've already experience); because neither Xavier nor Magneto need to speak it details, we understand this is the latest in a long series of philosophical arguments between the two men. What they're arguing about matters less than the weariness of the arguing, and the sense that this last-ditch effort to change course is doomed to fail There's also something fun in the chronological setting of the story, coming after the two friends have had their falling out, but before their ideals have crystalized into didactic "good mutant/bad mutant" gatherings of followers. We see the beginnings of that in Voght and the Maximoffs (with Voght a particularly fun inclusion given what we know of her future loyalties), but this sort of "they know they can't fight their fight alone, but also, they haven't started putting mutants in costumes to fight each other yet" era is a largely unexplored one.
So you could certainly argue this is a big nothing of an issue, one which does that prequel thing of just rehashing stuff we already know without adding anything to it (without actually rehashing it). At the same time, there's a sense of ambition to it, the feeling of trying to do something different than, as Stan Lee says in the closing panels, the typical "guys in tights beating each other" routine. Certainly, I'll take that swing — even if it is something of a miss — over, say, a story about Havok's adopted mother mistaking him for her dead son that he doesn't even remember.
Next Issue
Next Issue
Is Cable #-1 the best of the X-books' Flashback Month issues? Let's find out!
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I read the Cable flashback issue, but I don’t remember it, so I’m going to say that precludes its chances of being the best. I think I found this issue to be the best of the X-books for that month, but that was a low bar. Most of the flashback month issues seemed pointless.
ReplyDeleteI think the Peter David Hulk and JM DeMatteis Spectacular Spider-Man -1 issues were my two favourites. Which probably has something to do with those being the two books I considered the best Marvel was publishing at this point.
Of coruse the -1 format is going to include a story about Magento. And having him and Xavier argue one final time fits in with what the X-men or about. Though they could have included a few pages showing us how Magento recruited Toad and Mastermind. Even if those weren’t stories begging to be told, a couple of pages devoted to it, along with knowing how Magneto recruited Pietro and Wanda, could have been some sort of contrast to how Xavier recruited the X-men.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that sounds like a better idea to me.
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ReplyDeleteI’ve not read the Cable issue yet. And otherwise I don’t think I’ve read more a few of the #-1s ever (when they were published and because I subscribed to the series at hand at my comics shop). But I feel comfortable saying that X-Men #-1, to me, at minimum outclasses the rest of the X-Title entries you’ve covered so far combined.
Granted, I’m disinterested in the likes of Apocalypse, Mister Sinister, and this whole era of the franchise at best, and I find their usage really dissonant with the semi-retro cover treatments, etc. Yet I disagree with Austin that Pacheco wasn’t up to the mood or theme of this story. Lobdell’s quiet issues are, some of Generation X excepted, by far what I seem to like best about his stuff and I appreciate that in lieu of Xavier and Magneto assembling their incipient teams we only get the latter taking up his supervillain garb for what I suppose is narratively the first time onscreen.
Either with some tweaks to actively fit the movie’s continuity on its own in a minicomic or together with a contemporary action-oriented reprint as a hook to get folks into the current comics in a one-shot, I’d say this would’ve made an excellent giveaway (or at least $1 loss-leader) when the 2000 film came out.
This has the distinction of being the ONLY issue I've never read from Adjectiveless X-Men. And not because of some mix-up or unusual circumstance where I found it especially hard to acquire. No, I had every opportunity to do so... and simply passed it up because I had absolutely no interest in the premise whatsoever. A little went a LONG way with the Flashback Month gimmick, and it cannot be understated what a blow to the momentum of Marvel's entire slate of books it was. The X-books in particular were already dragging badly and dogged by a prolonged period of wheel-spinning in the wake of Onslaught. So FINALLY, they get a shot in the arm with O:ZT making their move on the team in the awesome, cinematic, and eventful X-Men #65. To be followed by... a whole month... of this... bullshit.
ReplyDeleteThough the contents of the story itself already had an uphill battle in capturing the attention of an action-hungry 13-year-old, this was the first time I had outright rejected an issue on principle. I DID pick up the -1 issues for the other various titles I was reading at the time: Uncanny, X-Men, Generation X, and X-Factor. But finding those falling short of my already low expectations, this is where I drew the line. In a small way, I guess this issue (in absentia) represents something of a turning point in my relationship with the hobby. After all those years as a loyal collector/rube, at last I was developing the power of discernment!
All that being said, it doesn't surprise me to hear that this is one of the better offerings from the Flashback stunt. It at least plays to Lobdell's strengths, and there's something to be said for Amelia Voght's inclusion. However minor her presence, it does contribute to the notion that she had something of a life with Charles - doing a bit more world-building than her earlier single-issue continuity insert could accomplish as a one-and-done tale. Does it tell us anything we don't already know? No, but at least it's set in a relatively unexplored window of history for the characters. The fact that there's no obligatory fight scene or forced conflict is rather welcome, since that's kind of the point - nothing much was SUPPOSED to be happening in this transitional time between Charles and Magneto's falling out and the assembling of their respective squads. Even devoid of action and light on plot, it certainly sounds like there's more to offer here than the comparatively worthless X-Man and X-Factor entries. Shame then I hadn't encountered this ahead of those other two, as I don't think I would've come away actively angry that I'd wasted my time and money (just frustrated and disappointed by the unwelcome diversion).
At least “Flashback Month” had more going for it than ‘Nuff Said Month. The worst example of editorial interference I have ever seen. Morrison’s New X-Men gave it a really hard try, but it would have been better served as a sub-plot in a regular issue as it moved the story-line along very little. The Paul Jenkins written issue was the very best (which wasn’t hard as almost everything else was absolutely terrible), as Jenkins didn’t even bother to try to take it seriously. He just let his own story drop in Spider-Man to tell the most ridiculous story he could think of for that month.
DeleteIt halted the momentum of every book for that month, as even the writers who attempted to make the ‘Nuff Said issue work with their ongoing plots ended up just filling up an issue for the month without being able to accomplish anything with their wider story-arcs. It’s just this bizarre story with no dialogue in the middle of a regular, normal superhero story-arc.
The worst part was that you couldn’t just skip the issues like with “Flashback Month” if you had a pull-list at your local comic shop because they would save each garbage issue from the series you collected as the ‘Nuff Said gimmick was part of the regular series. Then, you’d pay $2.99 (was that Marvel’s price at that point?) a comic for less than a minute worth of perusing material.
I think the only good -1 comic was the Thunderbolts one. It gave most of them character development and set things up for the new status quo when the Heroes Returned.
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