Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”
Chapter Fifty-Five
1987
June-December, 1987 Alpha Flight Vol. 1 No. 51-57 by Jim Lee (comics debut), J. Brigman (No. 52), Haynes (No. 54), H. Barta (No. 51 cover), Nowlan (No. 51-52 cover inks, No. 54 cover), Portacio, DeZuniga (No. 55-57 inks), Austin (at least No. 56 cover inks), Sharon, Wright (No. 54 colors), J, Chiang, Mantlo +Potts (+ No. 52 cover) & Spaldo (No. 52) or McLaurin (No. 56)
Previously on “to me my ❌-Men,” a refinement of our principle protagonist, Ororo, paradoxically, serves as a single issue, masterpiece palette cleanser, after a mid century hijinks cartooning is put through a late 80’s spin cycle for the youth and the old heads. Ororo’s issue centering and reminding, we are very much mid process in recovering from trauma of the Mutant Massacre, and just beginning to understand the causality of our primary story. Plot twist, Ororo becomes the delicious comics perfection filling of a sandwich, which has on the one hand a glossy varnish attempting to cover for its imperfections, and now we explore the other slice, which is nothing close to the refinement in Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 No. 220 seen in the previous chapter. However, the case is building, that the flaws provide the context that perspective thrives on.
My talk in previous chapters, of second guessing the inclusion of a handful of issues, as I kept letting in, newly acquired pieces to the story I knew as a kid…the balance here is steadied. Ironically, in perhaps our weakest addition. Even stranger, I am building a case against continuing on into the world building of this chapters focus. For he is the architect of my exit from the ❌-Men, as a youthful reader, while he was in the same moment an architect for my path into becoming a comics cartoonist, as a newly minted adult. It’s absolutely okay…you can call me, Mr. Paradox.
I first met Jim Lee the traditional way. My buddy Keith and I, spent a delightful morning at his Mom’s, in his idyllic lofted bedroom, browsing both Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz, & Frank Cirocco, AND Chuck Dixon & Larry Stormer’s Alien Legion runs, before hopping on a bus and heading across The Bay to my old haunt, Oakland. Where I attended my first comics convention, Wonder Con, 1991. I was amongst those who crowded Lee’s table, and out of this experience I got my first exposure to a future business reality I have mixed feelings about. I also got a signed copy of Uncanny X-Men No. 275. Which I still have. Spoiler, “to me my ❌-Men,” will end over a year and a half before this.
I would run into Lee in passing, a quarter century later. Any interest to stop and chat, evaporated over the years. A kid came by my house recently, talking about how he is friends with Lee, has his number, and I had the same reaction. I respect him, and am appreciative of him in a number of contexts. All I have to think of is Kelly at DC, or my own path with Image, to evoke genuine gratitude. Plus, his professional story is rad. I have my Gambit and Claremont feelings…I am sure I will speak on that far to many times…life is messy. What it is though is, I got to a point where his work didn’t do much for me. I am simply am not his audience. I don’t harbor ill will towards him either. He was doing the work, I have been unwilling to do, so he can reach a hight in the industry only a handful have. It’s really impressive. I am going to speak a lot about how he made creative and collaborative choices, that drove me out as a fan, and contextualized my empathy for his collaborators. These are true feelings. However, I am very aware, because at first I was one of them, that what he was going through was the hard work to gain his own audience. He absolutely was forging a path, I was attempting to follow. For years. After a while, I learned within myself, none of what he was doing was for me. Not creatively, and not professionally. Just different styles and goals. So he lost me along the way. And that is rightfully insignificant. A foot not in my journey. A nothing burger to the history of comics.
My journey has two minuscule foot notes in the broad view history of comics. Ben Cohen, first ‘maroon’ to hold together a BFA and MFA in comics cartooning (Sequential Art), in comics history. A warning to others. 2nd, even more obscure; three back up pages in an issue of Jeremy Holt’s Made in Korea, published by Image Comics…a publisher, that counts Jim Lee amongst its founders. Work that dovetailed with my neurodivergence and the pandemic to unintentionally and bewilderingly destroy a friendship that still pains me to reflect upon. Paradox, irony, self-deprecation are the building materials for our happy place folks. I am still paying for both these foot notes.
Jim Lee out worked me on his first page of debut here. Making this reflection absurdist narcissism; it’s genetic…actually a fascinating story for chatter within my family, but I take responsibility for my words and actions. I am a mild case. Jim Lee is a real one. That’s the fact. I am just reflecting in a diary, few will ever know existed. Dust to the wind, is the goal. The marks to forgotten and buried to even be erased.
So we turn to what his mark making first brought as a comics pro.
Before the spirit animal icon of the scene, Rob Liefld emerges here; and the work ethic philosopher Eric Larson is once again passed over by yours truly; on the heals of the proto-Image Comics creator, Art Adams; the scene’s senior member, Marc Silvestri; its pot-stiring leader, Todd McFarlane; its glue guy Whilce Portacio; of which, them last four, we have spent time with thus far in “to me my ❌-Men;” we turn to Jim Lee, who grinds his way all the way to the top. That grind, begins here.
This is an academic exercise and historical foraging effort. While technically a professional, and I speak from personal experience, the novice is challenging to shake. Jim Lee works relentlessly here, publicly, attempting to present his voice, which can be heard, but is hard to look at.
To me, decades removed, a lot of experience looking at professional and student work, with a specific understanding of the collective and individual visual lexicon and its development of comics, Marvel specifically…I see a window into what it was like in 1939, through to the dawn of Atlas. I also see, a childhood bridging the 60’s 70’s 80’s, through action figure play fantasy, on comics pages authored by this 23 year old. I can see the exuberance, the commitment, the joy, traditions of aping and tracing, mingling with a lack of anatomy skills, experience with sequential storytelling, the ability to stay on model, knowledge of page layout, awareness of the eye, the golden spiral, the crutch of the spalsh page, etc…Everything, I personally struggled with, and possessed going in. Jim Lee bravely was presenting on a stage available throughout North America and to the future, a world wide earned audience and academics.
As was told to Todd McFarlane, as was very true in my case, you can see, the single image renderings coming together more effectivly, then the sequential pages. This is typical of our generation. We did not have the same traditions of apprenticeship. Schooling was obscured…as Kubert School and SVA were not exactly a commonly known resource outside the North East, and to comic historians and insiders. Bob Pendarvis had not yet convinced Richard and Paula to begin the Sequential Art department at SCAD, in Savannah, yet. James Sturm had not left there to develop the Center for Cartoonist Studies, here in Vermont. We did not have computer technology that could mimmic or phasilitate a creative process that presented our work on a professional level. What Jim Lee was presenting is what we made from our inspiration to be on this path. Jodie Foster and Todd McFarlane’s film production Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys brilliantly depicts this struggle.
Alpha Flight, in Jim Lee’s hands, has raw, GenXer, adolescent boy energy…but it is from the hands of one in their 20’s. Typical.
Hilary Barta’s cover nearly sets Jim up for disaster. Barta’s carrier in the trenches of comics is standard journeymen professionalism. Highlights include inking a number of name icons; Byrne-Liefeld; as well as, back up and smaller gigs; Marvel, DC, Nexus, Malibu, Image, Alan Moore’s ABC, Bongo, Dark Horse, Mirage. Here the cover captures the energy and anatomy Jim Lee has within him, but can’t yet produce.
Bill Mantlo, who cut his teeth, writing for Marvel in the mid 70's on Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, seemed to be on the fringes, filling in issues, until he settled into Rom and Howard the Duck, got what must have been a dream job, The Incredible Hulk, and then landed another favorite of ours Vision and Scarlett Witch, is the established Alpha Flight scribe, and it feels like he is playing down to Jim Lee’s level. This is creating that Timely Era reading experience I am feeling.
Alpha Flight is Box now Madison Jeffries, Sasquatch now Wanda Langowski, and Vindicator AKA Heather McNeil. Beta Flight is Manakin AKA Whitman Knapp and Purple Girl AKA Kara Killgrave. This lineup is a strength, that only get better over these issues. They are the actual reason we are here. Nostalgia for these and subsequent team Flight members are my era. I have a soft spot for them.
I am a fan of, and at times utilize, this cartoonist narrative trope, of the arching, inhuman, removed, absent, obscured, adult figures in comics and cartoons. The voice in Peanuts classroom, the stripped sox in Muppet Babies, as a preschool teacher and a parent, with a long memory into the depth of my own childhood, I can appreciate the narrative and comedy elements. It’s an aesthetic I lean into, when I can. It’s space for the youthful characters to build agency, relationships, and community. It give them something problematic for them to navigate, in search of a solution, often in a safe context, but not always. In fiction it can be presented in very unsafe contexts.
My fear of being kidnapped was visceral. I grew up in a time when adult news of an epidemic of lost children was filtering into my developing mind. The existential threat of nuclear holocaust, the tangible threats navigating my actual day to day, could be processed, but kidnapping was not something my mind could solve. This made the ❌-Men a compelling representation of my development and path in reality, as I entered adolescence. It also set me up for empathy to characters who struggled with adult figures in their lives.
It makes me an empathic teacher in preK, and provides guardrails of self reflection on trying days. I appreciate and try to protect my students agency, as I try to help them navigate into social context that react to this agency as aberrant behaviors. It’s a tricky wicket. I am not perfect, but the general consensus, is I am skilled at my day job.
The molding of young minds is a bit insigne. Look at our world. Has our collective paths been the way? Each generation struggles with this, and in the end, we all can look back and see movements we simply could have made better choices in support of our collective future. The reason there is compelling aspects to this Alpha Flight story, is because, at its core, it is kids, struggling with adults, who simply keep putting their view on them and keep failing to see and hear them and their agency.
We can also look back, for example at youthful certainty in the face of aged wisdom, and disrespect for lessons learned. The paradox is present here. As, you can sense that Jim Lee was part of a group of artists who had individually and collectively a point of view, and an ignorance and lack of respect for what was a deliberate process. So the work that Claremont and Simonson represented, the history of Joe Simon through Frank Miller, was not of concern. The learned wisdom and process, was viewed as an obstacle of their confident progress. It lacked youthful energy, that the Image Creators sensed the market demanded, because they were close to the age of the marketplace. They weren’t wrong on this assessment.
Reflecting back on this beginning, it looks like children playing at making comics, with their action figures chaotically placed in their room. What we miss, is the hidden care of youth for each other. And the obvious error of adulthood. While what is plan to see is, an a mess, that should be cleaned up before dinner. A context the latchkey kid had a vicarial reaction to. One, single mothers were struggling to keep their heads above water in. Or in my case, proving mothers were more than capable of handling. Facilitating a context for independent and self sufficient children turned adults. Prepared to navigate most spaces with balanced care and sense of self.
Tamara Island, in the vicinity of the Alpha Mansion, in British Columbia, Canada, a Canadian G.I. Joe action figure scene unfolds. Canada’s humans v meta humans unfolds, as the Beta Flight members represent. Gary Cody, the liaison between the government and the Flight, co-founder of the entire program, and a spy for the humans within government who hold fear in their hart, is running a test. Flight members assume their success is a welcome result to Cody. He has some conflicted feelings, and we spend a lot of time in his mind, navigating his scenes. But ultimate he works for whom he works for, and his arrangement with co-founder James Hudson AKA Guardians, is ancient history. As he is dead, and his wife Heather’s running of the team, lacks the perspective of white male privilege and human fears of the unknown in the level that Cody and the Canadian government share.
We are treated to flashbacks throughout the run, that pull in remembrances of context, which bog down the story in the Stan Lee mandate. Which suffers under the novice impulses of Jim Lee. It’s rough, because there is little space and learned skill to simply cartoon. The mess in the bedroom, obscures the moments of play, that have value.
Cameos include: x-Alpha Flight; Aurora, Northstar, Guardian, Marrina, Puck, Shaman, Snowbird. x-Beta Flight; Roger Bochs’s Box, Flashback. x-Gamma Flight; Diamond Lil, Wild Child. Some of who were in multiple groups and the arches Omega Flight. Avengers; Black Knight, Captain America, Hercules, Sub-Mariner, Hulk. Arches ranging from Lady Deathstrike to Loki. And then of course there is Wolverine. Purple Man is obviously relevant and is directly noted.
Heather is not exactly listening to the youth, or hearing Cody. She really feels a bit clueless through out and keeps making errors of judgment as leader throughout the story. A story that has characters who frame her and undermine her abilities to do these things. She is the voice in the Peanuts classroom. Making it hard to empathize with her, without having been a parent and teacher…and even then…I don’t care much for her. Undermining the romance narrative with Madison. There is a nice moment in this run, where Logan gets a moment to express to Madison, he thought it would be Puck, but he is glad for Madison and Heather. He no longer holds a candle for her. A part of the reason he left with Chuck that day in 1975.
The romance we care for is between Whitman and Kara. Jim Lee’s first solid cartooning moment happens, when he depicts a moment to moment sequence of these two in an intimate entailment, post explosion on the battlefield. It’s a simple two panels, but it is actual visual storytelling. Their care for each other builds on this moment, and is critical to holding our interest together.
Whitman’s powers are really fun. He has three selves that emerge from himself. They are time displaced. Proto, a pink blob is the best. He simply devours what he comes in contact with. Apeman is simply a mindless strong man, but we enjoy him all the same…especially in concert with Proto. Highbrow is Whitman’s future self, a lanky nerd with circuitry and the ability to teleport. His personality is kinda a delight. Especially in how he thinks he knows, but it is the present Whitman who actually has the useful knowledge in most moments. This comic is desperate for the joy they bring. Not always rendered well, they still ad aesthetically pleasing elements to the page. Including the design of teleportation.
Wanda’s presence in the team, is fascinating, as a window into 1987. She is played as a sex figure, who is either intentionally, or perhaps subconsciously, representing trans in this comic. For all our critical thoughts of the development of Image Comics, especially around machismo perspectives playing out on the page, there is a flip side to this coin. I know more than one comics creator who is trans, who sites the aesthetics and narratives of 90’s superhero comics as a source of joy and place where they found a form of representation. There is something in the way the figures are being depicted, as plastic surgery culture, and accessibility to pornography was expanding and providing life rafts of seeing yourself in the culture. It is really complicated, and I am not the one to speak to it, but there is something developing here, that is part of bringing queer culture into comics in greater numbers. And it’s hard not to see Wanda’s struggle with identity, and the depiction Mantlo and Lee are putting on the page, as an awkward step in that direction. I have zero idea about their intentions. But here is a character who has been many identities, thinks and speaks on it, and is now in the middle of a transition into finding themselves in this gender. I am sure it is messy and problematic. But I also suspect it was and is welcoming to some. I do wonder if Wanda helped. I certainly feel for her here.
Wanda places Cody squarely in his awkward rigidity. Setting him up as an arch. Alpha Flight is more of a family then ever. And they don’t see he is there to spy on them. He uses his knowledge of having helped build the mansion and a disk he brought to gain access to all thier data and extract it for the governments purposes. All while Alpha Flight is setting up to thank him for supporting them all this time.
Initially, June Brigman’s issue doesn’t elevate the storytelling, meaning Mantlo, is intent on making this comic for lil’ obnoxious boys. It is here that we learn Logan also left on account of an experiment to control a powerful murdering mutant, Bedlam, by James. Logan was his first experiment, and now this one seemed even more off the rails. So star crossed lover and mad scientist plots are enough for Logan to leave with strangers. Cody discovers the pod that houses this murdering mutant over a decade later…below the mansion. The adults are reflective. The teens have a delightful moment of shared care…one of Purple Girl’s better depictions is by Brigman here. Madison goes from concern over Whitman’s age in comparison to the younger Kara…setting up a Colossus and Shadowcat dynamic…and then we have Madison and Heather’s romance moment…viewed by Wanda with complex feeling in her mind. All while the pod has been opened, leaving a Cody out cold. Silent panels by Brigman, are the most effective storytelling in this comic…they are effecting. Bedlem is free…so the issue ends with a call to Logan.
Lee pencils a great blown up mansion. And, while not what he will be doing, it is clear he cares and has an affinity for Wolverine. Who is front and center in this issue. He is investigating, and then we are shown what lead up to the explosion. I don’t especially love Bedlem or this rendering and approach. Bedlem has captured and off world in an Alien’s inspired scene…this entire run is now going to be pulling from HR Giger. Lee and Bob Sharen also ape Frank Miller and Glynis. As the panels have become smaller and more dense, until we have a page of a forty panel gride, breaking down who Bedlem has captured and a visual rendering of their stories; Vindicator, Freakout (who is essentially Eastman and Laird’s Casey Jones from TNMT…or Mick Foley’s Mankind), Sasquatch, Janus, Purple Girl, Break-Down, Manikin, and Goblyn…who is going forward our POV. This all reminds me today of my mind being blown away by these 55 panel page grids:
Gilbert Hernandez’s Roy in Love & Rockets Vol. II No. 6 c. 2002
Gilbert flexed here in a way, that was inspiring. Jim Lee should get some credit doing this over a decade earlier.
Chaotic sequences of action take over, as Logan and comics logic assists in the freeing there characters and a defeat of Bedlem. Logan leaves, and Goblyn has entered thier lives. Already proving to be handful.
Hugh Haynes fills in, and we get an endearing moment with Goblyn outside in the cold of the winter on the island. We learn that Laura Dean and Goblyn are connected and trade places when Laura is scared or threatened. Laura is one of my all time favorite characters. Kinda like Michael Nowolan I have this affinity for this minor character, on the level, that I value their story ahead of most name characters. In Laura Dean’s case, the way her story is told, is not helping my case. I guess she reminds me of friends from childhood. The struggle she is under is considerable. Her parents in utero were struggling with empathy for the mutant growing inside. So a form of teleportation helped hide Goblyn, in another dimension called the Liveworld. The kids refer to 616 as the Deadworld. Purple Girl is usually the one interacting with these interchangeable characters, as she is empathic to both. Whitman’s role evolves, as the closer Kara gets with Laura the more Heather is concerned about Goblyn’s presence in their lives, and Whitman must advise her to limit this instinct, as Within Goblyn is perhaps both Kara and Laura. We get a flashback of Kara, her mother and father (Killgrave), and the team gets entangled with Goblyn…but Kara does so and in the moment learns she can hug it out with the Goblyn.
Lee returns to begin a Wanda forces issue, that evolves into Laura, Goblyn and Kara issue. Lee’s best page yet, is helped with coloring from Bob Sharon. Then the issue swerves into Great Beast action, as this is Alpha Flight. That post Atlas, pre-Fantastic Four Kirby origin story is represented here.
The action transitions to off worlds, space ship action, with Box becoming a fun rending of a ship, bringing in the influence of Macros on the moment. Goblyn is going full Aliens onboard and Heather is struggling to understand…this is just another little girl…another mutant…Laura’s twin. And then the robotic aliens attack from a pod in the ship. As our favorite page of the series reveals Laura and Kara galavanting in the Liveworld being observed by the Dreamqueen. This is where Whitman helps guide Heather into not harming Goblyn, thus saving Laura and Kara.
We conclude this chapter with the ship landing on a planet. More delightful Laura and Kara in Liveworld moments, and the reveal that Dreamqueen is there and has a pet, Goblyn. Who shows when Laura leaves of course. We also learn that Laura is neurodivergent and this contributes to Heather’s issues with all this. The planet is made of organic crystals, and finally Kara is able to show Alpha Flight what “Playpen Patrol” AKA Beta Flight has known…Goblyn is trying to be helpful to those who are helpful to her. But now…it seems the twin girls are in the clutches of Dreamqueen.
Next: Proper Uncanny X-Men
