Chapter Forty-Six

1986

Mutant Massacre

July-October, 1986, Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 No. 210-213 by Romita Jr, Blevins, Leonardi, A. Davis, Windsor-Smith, Green, Williamson, Neary, Wiacek, Glynis, Orzechowski, Crespi, Claremont + Nocenti & Kavanagh + August-September, 1986; X-Factor Vol. 1 No. 10-11 by W. Simonson, Wiacek, P. Scotese, Rosen, L. Simonson + Harras + August-September, 1986; Thor Vol. 1 No. 373-374 by W. Simonson, S. Buscema, Scheele, Workman + Macchio + August-September, 1986; New Mutants Vol. 1 No. 46-47 by Guice, Windsor-Smith, Baker, Glynis, Orzechowski, L. Buhalis, Claremont + Nocenti & Kavanagh + September, 1986; Power Pack Vol 1 No. 27 by Bogdanove, Gordon, Russell, Glynis, Rosen, L. Simonson + Potts + September, 1986; Daredevil Vol 1 No. 238 by S. Buscema, A. Adams, Leialoha, Janson, Scheele, Rosen, Nocenti + Macchio

Mixtape Tracks: Shattered Illusions by Détente; Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House; Say You, Say Me by Lionel Richie; The Witchwood by Alkatrazz; The Singer by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds; Shopping Mall of Love by Sparks; Hate My Way by Throwing Muses; Wasted Years by Iron Maiden; R.O.D. by The Fall; Swamp Thing by The Chameleons; Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order; Wake Up Dead by Megadeth;

Chapter 46 of “to me my ❌-Men,” on the heals of Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter’s 1984-1985’s Secret Wars I and 1985-1986’s Secret Wars II, the two first official line wide Marvel crossovers, a toy sales ad campaign disguised as a comic book “event,” the Claremont, Nocenti, Liouse and Walter Simonson in the “X-Office,” reluctantly appeased their Editor-In-Chief’s request to replicate the practice. The impact on their creative process, colabertations, and characters put a bad taste in the X-offices collective mouths, but they are professionals, so…Jim say’ shoot…they shoot. Sooo….Becoming the first X-crossover, results in increased sales…and we have been stuck in this nearly annual habit ever since. The storytelling, not always being close to this excellent of compelling, as derivatives. 1986’s Mutant Massacre becomes our 8th masterpiece; Chapter 7’sWolverine, Chapter 17’sDemon Bear, Chapter 21 & 30’s Life Death, Chapter 27’sLegion, Chapter 32’sLongshot, Chapter 36’sBorn Again, Chapter 41’sWeapon ❌, being our other seven+ masterpieces, thus far.

Previously on “to me my ❌-Men,” Weapon X program, The Body Shop, and The Reavers, oh my! Rachel’s Max Headroom AI nightmare Nimrod, has followed her throughout eh multiverse, making his big reveal in Central Park to an audience of X-Men & the Hell Fire Club, and X-Factor & Freedom Force; not so much. Driving the plot underground to the Morlock Tunnels, where the plot working in the shadows promises to begin to reveal itself. We put a pin in this moment as we took our time in reacquainting ourselves with vintage Dazzler, after being introduced to Betsy through the nearly long version of the UK’s Captain Britain story, the Alan Davis part. Establishing two central characters for the second half of our storytelling. We also took to the spinner rack (or comics bins) once more, to support the Body Shop part of this, as the Mojoverse, hinting at a third character to establish in what is quickly becoming fundamental in the telling of this story. We also, took a moment to pull ourselves back from the horror of a clown, and set up this next part with a sobering and somber tale of Larry’s ending. Where we see our POV Kitty maturing. So back to the tunnels and a plot that began with Annlee’s lifeless children being carried by Sunder in Chapter 26 and will be with us for the foreseeable future.

I have only been moving with me five of the Mutant Massacre 12 issues, since 1986. I have never properly read the other seven. Which doesn’t seem right, because I feel intimately familiar with Uncanny X-Men No. 210. I must have had this issue, a sixth, if you will, and took one look at the cover once, and thought, “nah, you don’t deserve to make the journey this move.” The other six; NM No. 46, PP No. 27 (I bought PP 1-25 in London nearly a decade ago), UXM No. 212, Thor No. 374, Daredevil No. 238, and NM No. 47 were either not Marvel 25th Anniversary cover issues, or not part of my waffling of commitment issues, between X-Factor and Uncanny X-Men back in 1986.

Issue No. 11 of X-Factor was part of my painfully slow process of letting go of that series. Eventually I would rid myself of most of The Simonson’s historically beloved run. Issue No. 26’s costume change really finished off any joy I was having. Somehow I carried on through the Larry Stroman Era. Which I am so thankful I did and still have. I am a huge admirer of both Walt and Larry, as people and cartoonists. I gravitate towards Larry’s layouts and character design. I have grown to enjoy the nuances of how Walt works a panel fully, and works with lines as an immediacy and graphic element. They are both genius cartoonists in my mind. However, in the context of X-Factor, it was Larry, not Walt that brings me worth while returns. Walt ironically pulled me in with his cover, issue No. 1, but drove me off the book as an enthusiast, once he began doing the interiors. My respect and love for Louise’s work, was subconscious, and not fully realized till conversations in college brought up her massive role in all this context. However, I am settled in my comfortable paradoxical feels now, as she both informed the second half of my favorite parts of X-Factor, and was instrumental in driving off the first half of favorite parts…and when Walter appeared it enabled them to create something, that was not my thing, and felt like a narrative and aesthetic betrayal at the time. When all it was, was another example of comics pushing forward to work for a new audience. A great thing. I still give The Simonson’s an off-ramp here. And am happy to bring them back in when I can. However, I still can’t with the En Sabah Nur (except with specific small doses when not done by Walt, and barely influenced by him), I can’t with Archangel (spoiler he should have died here), and while I loved watching the slow heal turn of Cameron Hodge (should be obvious by now), what he becomes and his henchmen The Right and their leader Nanny are unbelievably stupid in design by Walt…I just can’t. Which is going to impact the second half of this story on a grand scale and even with ignoring most of this, we still are subjected to other integral characters, who are also designed just as stupidly. Its a base and anti-intellectual reaction…but honestly…it feels like an aesthetic disease running through this aesthetic story…and I am doing my best hear to make this quality cartooning . So in the end, I am cutting X-Factor off, before it gets to nasty for my taste…even if I didn’t do this properly back in the day. I blame the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse…three of which were awesomely effecting at first.

We don’t need more…we need less.

I know. Look who’s talking.

AND I absolulty feel like I have let some horrific aesthetics in right here in this chapter. Not Walt’s doing at all.

Romita Jr, Wiacek and Crespi’s Uncanny X-Men No. 210 cover is trash.

Damn it! Like the love ballad that was Harvey and Janet! Like the original Reavers that are Wade Cole, Angelo Macon, and Murray Reese! Like The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend’s Henchman 21 Gary Fischer and his BFF Henchman 24 of The Venture Brothers! Like Stormtrooper Finn! We are being effected by another Hellfire henchman. There are no bad guys. There are simply choices. And her we see him in his moment of peril attempt to make the choice that is attempting fill a Morlock’s bucket. Romita Jr. pulls you right into Mutant Massacre. We are in with both feet here. Claremont informs this with a setting, a bio, and interpersonal dynamics of hope.

“…LA…”

“Richard Salmons—Age 27. He was good at his job…”

“…PLEASE, Tommy—Please—Together we have a chance! TOGETHER, we can still beat the odds!”

Morlock, Tommy, with their rainbow hair, skin, and complimentary white style, is rendered in a way that just pulls at your heart strings…and you get the sense…it is being ripped out of your chest here.

“No tunnels” in LA, it was supposed to “be such a great adventure…wandering across the whole country.” Speaking my language here.

Tommy:

“Who’s after me?! Why do they want to KILL me?!!”

“I don’t want to die!”

As the Hellfire agent is on the ground, electricity surging through his body, paralyzed…gun tragically within reach…Tommy the passafist makes an abandoning break through the night, in the train yard.

A swashbuckling superhero boot crushes Richard’s hand, inches from his solution to his problem.

“Naughty, naughty, Chum. No more guns for you.”

chBOOM! as Tommy unconsciously breaks the fourth wall, looking right at us through the panel. And the bottom tier of the third page is completed with two panels of a train moving in the yard by a tiny Tommy, and a close up of Tommy’s back reaching for the latter on the side of one of the moving train cars.

Page turn, Tommy uses her mutation, and turns 2D, able to slip like paper between the train car doors. Richard dispatched, their hunters know exactly were she is, but orders indicate they need Tommy to get where Tommy is going for now. And we are clued into Malice having an assignment elsehere.

So we head there, to SF where Alison (Dazzler) is doing some heavy lifting of sound equipment, as they are breaking down, after a set. Ali notes the enhanced strength of all mutants. She passes on Conal’s invite to the after party. He is on her case for acting like a solo act and not being part of the band socially. Ali sets up a boundary and heads to the bus. She is now in her head about yelling and how they are kinda right that her separation perpetuates the perception she is a “prima donna,” and is disrespectful to Lila’s status as band leader. She transitions this into a humorous juxtaposition about how she looking in the moment (read the comic…seriously…this is a great one).

We transition through thought of isolation paradox as a public Icon and private mutant…which she came out as…but anyway…and Lila is both too…

“I owe her so much…but I hate owing anyone anything.” SAMES.

She still is trying to prove things to her DAD…when…

“…GASP!”

Her reflection in the mirror shifts to a version of herself that is not reflective of who she is…especially in this moment…we are seeing herself reflection as…

Malice (reflection): “I’m MALICE, Alison. I’m YOU—”

Claims to be her POP DIVA self…and leaps from the mirror, grabbing her by the throat.

Ali (SFX Panel): GET AWAY!

She awakes in the small bus bathroom…and shakes it of…heads to be, seemingly herself.

In a serious of pages that come off as basic X-Men comics to this point aesthetically…meaning their strength is in the use of gestural and loose subtly in inking of small figures and the recognizable environment they exist in. We are back in NYC. It also looks like Rogue is taking note of the damage at what is the X-Factor Comlex, but Rogue is unfamiliar and I simply don’t know in this moment what happened here. Perhaps I have already mentioned it. We can see the twin towers on page 7’s panel five. The damage to which we will never forget. We are witness to Rogue flying around in her head and saving a window washing crew in a way that makes you admire Rogues strength and style. And then we are reminded…we too…are the creeps.

Guido (just saved crew memeber): “—I could KISS you!”

She is selling the heroic branding of the X-Men, as he flirts…she reciprocates and is more forgiving then I would expect…but for the fact that any physical contact with her brings up trauma for her and the other person…which frankly is a whole thing here…and needs to kept in mind. I have always found this essential and effecting to her character. It is the balance of power and problem that makes mine Marvel.

Like Ali, she sees herself in a reflection (this time a passing window on a building), and like Ali, her vanity reminds her she looks like she has been working hard.

So we get an impromptu fashion show…which objectively is very late 80’s big shoulder pads and strong forms of inverted triangles to extenuate an hourglass and perpetuate a sturdy hard rock design with bold monochromatic colors. She settles on a green (non brand) that is accompanied by a block braking up white punkish big belt and outfit that is assisted greatly by full form black tight suit. It works for now. And then the snooty make up artist overworks her face into a clownish look that somehow aligns with an old white man recognizing her as an X-Men…meaning mutant…and he threatens to call X-Factor on this innocent shopper. But he is confronted by her new stalker, Guido…and that man attempts to out man the other man (who could be mistaken for Maggie). As the scene shifts their focus to the machismo off on the street.

Oh my mistake…

Woman: “…don’t you DARE fight in here—this is BLOOMINGDALE’S!!!”

Rogue takes off with her bags of boxes of outfits.

She passes a bus, with a full X-Factor ad. Rogue has all she needs to know for now.

She needs to let Ororo know…”—for all the good it will do.”

The second half of this issue, continues on the last third, with a return to The School for Gifted Youngster and two familiar voices within reconnect after what seems like, ‘it’s been a minute.’ Siblings bantering about shredded clothes requiring retrieval from the depths of the closet and memories of the 70’s, prophetically channeling style from the 80’s, and to me a revelation:

Illyana Nikolaevna Rasputin: “Are these sketches yours?”

Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin: “I began them when I joined the ❌-MEN.”

This clarity of process and development informs my understanding of my own path, as Marc Silvestri’s depiction of Piotr’s sketching will inform my own lifes path as a cartoonist and educator. As a human.

To have this loving sibling moment at this moment in the story…before once again things will go sideways…it is endearing. As an older brother, as a parent, as a loving person…

Illyana: “They’re lovely—and so are you.”

They were never sent to their intended. And here she is discovering and receiving them after all.

This is ❌-Men comics.

They shift focus to our POV, Illyana’s BFF, Piotr’s Ex, their classmate and team fellow gang member. Who is shook by what happened to Rachel and Kurt. Piotr admits he never stopped caring for Kitty. Illyana feels Kitty needs both of them:

Illyana: “…if we don’t look after our own, who the heck will?! Trouble is. Right now, it’s like the ❌-Men—maybe the whole world—is falling to pieces around her.”

Such is life it would seem.

Piotr: Around us all.

Damn…Illyana offers the work hope demands of it…”before it’s to late.”

Piotr: “Perhaps, dear sister it already is.”

Our struggle on the page.

Bellow, phased inside, fiddling with Cerebro:

Katherine Anne Pryde: “RAZZLEFRAZZIT! GRMBLESNTCHKLEICT! Pull loose, you stupid circuit board—AHA!” Now where’d I leave the replacement? Careful! CAREFUL!”

Depictions of Kitty doing her actual work at the school, gives me immense joy. ART! Second only to, Lockheed’s indifference as a witness.

She just upgraded the system so any ❌-Men can utilize Cerebro’s primary function to find other mutants…not just the telepaths.

So now she can find Kurt and Ray. As Kurt BAMFed while interacting with Nimrod in Central Park, and as Ororo noted at the time, disappeared in agony. And Rachel was last scene by us, to be with Spiral in the Body Shop, to which the rest of X-Men are not familiar with…well Betsy has crossed its path, and Logan has come across it’s products.

Kitty is working the problem. A form of processing, which should give the siblings that sense of hope, that is fleeting them. Kitty of course has her own self doubt. And wonders if they feel better without her, where they are.

Kitty: “The ❌-Men struggle as hard as we can—to help people, to protect the world—and no one cares. Is this what it’s going to be like…for the rest of my life?!”

Yes. And count your blessings fellow GenXer. Compliments are the worst.

Piotr: “Quite possibly.”

Kitty: “Be nice if things occasionally got better.”

On balance…they do from certain angles. All the time.

Just shift your perspective and the struggle takes a pause. But don’t get a crick in your neck.

Piotr: “And if not, what? You wish to quit?!”

Kinda the same point from a different angle.

Love that panel with Lockheed on Kitty’s head.

Ack! Kitty shifts from thoughts of a banana split (Lockheed agrees with this idea…and Piotr hates it) to doom and gloom…because Piotr could shift to talking about tasty snacks.

Kitty harbors a sense of betrayal from Rachel’s disapearnsece right now. Which is interesting, as Kitty has been disappeared herself under similar circumstances, and every person in this school should jump to the conclusion of manipulation resulting captivity any time someone doesn’t return from Salem Center Mall after hours. And I am Piotr…

“I take each moment as it comes.”

His salient point is interrupted by Cerebro’s alarm…it’s got a lead.

Meanwhile, Maggie is in an ally off 5th Ave, heading to the Hellfire Club, per invitation. There is a scene, which surprises him, as there are police and media due to last nights Hellfire Club Lords Cardinal, X-Men, Nimrod…and honestly Morlock, Freedom Force and X-Factor events.

Speaking of…of course…this the moment that leads up to part of the Morlock, Freedom Force and X-Factor part of the story…you know the one…where Maggie is called out by Jean…seeing him out and about for the first time.

Maggie thinks they have turned against their own kind…not wrong…and they think he is mingling with fellow villains…not wrong. And yet…not right in either case.

Shaw is posting about how elite the club is…especially this part…and since Donald Piece has been absent (KEEP THIS IN MIND), who better than Maggie to take what is rightfully his…the title of White King….here is that moment.

Maggie: “You have to be joking.”

Shaw wants it so, specifically because it brings the X-Men into the fold. And Maggie is pointing out last night you tried to murder the X-Men, and have been trying to manipulate his students.

Selene points out, Rachel tried to murder me…sooo…

Maggie: “No doubt, Selene, with good reason.”

Shaw tries to squash this. He confirms Maggie’s take. Because it is fact…and we love this Maggie. Shaw is shredding the needle through the tapestry that is us v them. Mutant v human…and time traveling robot AI made to hate on mutants and murder them. And Shaw gives Magneto his own speech.

Shaw: “You condor us villains, we consider you fools—those days, those labels must be cast aside.”

Hellfire and School for Gifted Youngster must unite v X-Factor, Freedom Force and Nimrod…who have by the way…not had the same sort of meeting.

Maggie will mull it over.

Later, a Hudson River Warehouse Kurt is found as he typically is, with humans throwing objects and insults at him a mobbed up formation…and Illyana, Kitty, and Piotr extract him, as usual…well they try a “crazy stunt.” Posing as human, cause they can pass as human…the three non threatening looking white human passing X-Men try communication and deescalation tactics. Kitty even goes as far as to let the father, whose children were apparently scared by Kurt’s appearance and kicked of this tired fear parade, that she is afraid of him. And places her own safety on the line, by offering herself up to his desire to bully and abuse Kurt, in the name of protecting his children. This all works. She even feeds him the answer in the form of a question:

“…an I’m just a girl! Hey — maybe I’m a Mutie, too? Ever think of that?!! Maybe we all are?!!”

The crowed disperses in shame and reflection.

Well kinda…she provides exactly what they are in a hypothetical and a women gives her the old, ‘don’t talk to your elders talk.’ This women looks no more than ten years older.

The fact that the ❌-Men are a bit stunned this work is frustrating. But I am glad this exists a half century after the telling of this story began.

Piotr has Rachel’s perspective from her timeline in mind as this is happening.

Kurt seems to have lost his powers…thus his circumstances.

Delacorte Theatre, Central Park; cowboy Logan and punker Ororo have tracked Rachel to this spot. Ororo wonders if there is more to be done, as the trail ends here. Logan wonders if he has done enough, having attempted to murder her, as she was trying to murder Selene. Ororo is of the mind, it should never have gotten that far. I wonder what Magneto’s updated take is on this…he is across the street. Ororo accuses the ❌-Men of being a team. WWIII who is on the other side of the park would call them a gang. Ororo’s issue is not the attempt, but the solo act Logan has tendency to lean in on. She feels Rachel would be there now, had they been together in that moment. Fair point, solid leadership. She leans into, we are friends, Logan and her…but also, as leader I need to trust you and you need fucking listen and follow directions.

“All my life, darlin’, I’ve been a LOANER.”

Ororo: “Then walk away…”

But in the end:

Ororo: “You must be there.”

Logan: “I will be. To the end.”

Personal growth…and a prophetic statement.

LA has become the rail tunnel under Park Avenue, Manhattan, NYC…down the east side of Grand Central Station. “The 20th Century from Chicago is two hours late.” 2D Tommy leaps off. Iconic image. “…and home.”

Beautiful tunnels…home…safe.

“Surpise…”

Am electric harpoon in the back. The beauty holds onto life…informing two pages…until BOOM. The Marauders finish the job, with a gunshot.

I will never let this issue miss a move in my lifetime. Savannah, will inherit this one…and pass it along. I should have known when the Green, Glynis, Orzechowski, Claremont + Nocenti are on the page. They are the A-Team for a reason.

Cracking open another Marvel 25th Anniversary line wide cover design issue. I am still on the hunt for all of them. I have more than I did back in the day. It’s possible I could and should have grabbed them all. 75¢ each. This one had Wolverine centered amongst the Marvel Universe.

Bret Blevins’ Marvel pencil debut for Marvel was the adaptation from the “very important to me and my childhood” film The Dark Crystal. Followed by some Marvel Universe Handbook pages; the Jim Shooter kiss assing toy marketing first two issues of Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior; the adaptation from the “very important to me and my childhood” film Krull; the foot in the door to the X-offices ❌-Men Annual No. 7 I am still refusing because the arch is Impossible Man and the ❌-Men are not She-Hulk; the adaptation from the “very important to me and my childhood” film Last Star Fighter (not the comic as the limited series adaptation which I have); an issue continuing the story from the “the FIRST very important to me and my childhood” film Star Wars; An incredibly odd pairing for some reason to me, Marvel Team Up issue of Spidy and Sam…first time he is asked to pencil New Mutants presumably; a random Dr. Strange issue that showcases on the cover Bret is a fully formed cartoonist who knows his style and how to work it; a random Incredible Hulk issue which is sexy Conan vibe meets sexy Hulk vibes…and it is works; the first two issues of limited series Solomon Kane…never heard of this before; AND THEN he lands on an Epic line title called Buzz Chronicles…also new to me…where he obviously was able to stretch his legs and be a cartoonist. Six issues later he lands this ❌-Men fill in issue at a critical juncture. He will go on to do a quick fill in issue of Cloak and Dagger, and then an audition issue for New Mutants…which we skip over, starts penciling a nine issue run on Dr. Strange, does another fill in issue for ❌-Men which nearly threw me off the book…we will get to that, and finally finds a home on New Mutants while running out the clock on Dr. Strange. Bret and Louise become a bit of super team in the X-Offices.

They will work together until a handful of issues are filled in, when it becomes clear Rob Liefeld; coming off a bunch of comics, most of which I have or had; the 1988-1989 Hawk and Dove book at DC…did I sell these…or are they for sale(?); a fill in issue of X-Factor we will skip and I sold; and Uncanny ❌-Men we will embrace and cherish; an issue of Amazing Spider-Man featuring She-Hulk we let go of without regret; the New Mutants Annual which represents the bridge to far for me and is no longer with me; a what if about Logan I never was interested in; …it becomes crystal clear that Bret is off the book and Liefeld is about to become the trigger that blows up the North American comics market…his buddy Todd being the trigger man. The gunpowder manufacturer being Levi’s and the project manager Spike Lee, make Rob the most famous working cartoonist in America in through a commercial featuring him, and if you look closely on his drafting table you can see the death of the New Mutants title, the blowing up of Louise’s career, the birth of X-Force and Deadpool. What you don’t see is the full context of Marvel’s role, the X-Men’s role, and the birth of Image…but Bret serves as a bit of a contextual representative Paul Revere here.

Bret’s path is critical…and the most crucial stage may be this page…which frankly, he stumbles and falls through out the gate…picking himself back up when he get to The Mutants.

Our first fully rendered depiction of the Marauders’s is clearly a Bret Blevins penciled drawing. The bottom of the page credits John Romita Jr. & Bret Blevins as pencils, with Al WIlliamson on inks. How Al and John let Bret do this to himself and these characters I am not sure I get.

Probably they were all thinking, this is a gig and we are getting paid. Ann Nocenti, as editor the last line of critical thinking, should have sent this back. There is little doubt that Jim Shooter as Editor-In-Chief had his on this ball. Even though it is the industries most successful title, and this stage of the Claremont Run has begon to make that so for a generation or more, I think he was still focused on leave well enough alone…especially it seems, because the feelings were mutual. And if it wasn’t a toy, film or cartoon franchise marketing ploy Jim tended to be less involved. Plus, there was the New Universe starting up at this time…which seemed to be the symbolism of the problem with Jim…which was represented in burning effigy in Byrne’s backyard on Jim’s exit. Ann, Al, and John are three all time greats at quality control…and they failed their colleague here.

The Morlock, Mark Hallett AKA Sunder debuted in Uncanny X-Men No. 169 (see Chapter 5); you know the one that serves as the first crucifi❌ion (this time WWIII) book end to our story, and as referenced above in Uncanny X-Men No. 193 (see Chapter 26) is the one who carries Annalee’s children’s corpses. Well, those threads, which we try a center when ever we can, were sobering and dark in Paul Smith’s (No. 169) and Romita Jr. (No. 193) penciling. These moments, we try to recall and center them whenever we get another clue to their mystery, as they are fundamental in “to me my ❌-Men.” They are at the center of the story. Those children were shot by someone. A mystery that began to unfold in February of 1983, became THE moment of symbolism in crisis, as Callisto points out to Chuck…" SEE XAVIER—SEE!” as Sunder carries the corpses.

Now there are theories and accusations, but we have the luxury of hindsight and I at least have read enough to know, precisely who murdered those children and drove much of a plot for the past year and a half (never mind that moment took two years to build up to and now we are at 3 and ½ years out).

Sunder by the way will be with us through the end of “to me my ❌-Men.” He is no throw away character. Much like the shooter, we don’t always need characters to be present constantly and not be an essential in their impact. There are no small parts…but there are failures on this page to deliver on a moment. One so carefully and skillfully lead up to through last pages of the previous issue.

Expect we regain our footing…we do…as does Bret…but he really fails us in a moment that should never been allowed to be presented this way.

Scrambler AKA Kim Il Sung, my personal favorite Marauder (what…we all have our fav psychopathic murdering characters…we call them delicious…we know its so wrong…but we are blood thirsty humans…and that is not just an American thang…I say this as a kid from Berkeley…who went to school across from People’s Park…relax Y’All), is depicted like a muted colored Joker. When we see him in Silvestri’s hands you will perhaps get my frustration here. Arclight AKA Philippa Sontag is in the background, a diminished figure, which never feels right, unless it is an intimate and casual moment with John Greycrow (give it a sec.)…she should be imposing here. Maybe my least fave, and absolutely over used Marauder is Harpoon AKA Kodiak Noatak, who to Brets credit is not whitewashed here. Other than not being his usual nimble and gestural drawing Harpoon is the least objectionable here…well…kinda…

…Vertigo, who is actually Savage Land character from Marvel Fanfare…is depicted in slightly better drawing, but honetly…this page has all kinds of lesson on how not to draw form…which is frankly shocking…it’s not just that Bret is not right tonal fit here here…it is that this so wrong…as a drawing. As a cartoonist and as a one who draws human anatomy and understand life drawing…Bret should not have presented this…and Al one of the greatest cartoonists when it comes to presenting human anatomy in history should never have been okay with inking this (I get it…bills to pay…and mountains of pages to ink…plus…not exactly a kid anymore)…and if Romita has role here…and the more I look I can see perhaps he does…well I have inked (I did go to college for this…and yes we would ink over pro pencils) some Romita Jr…and frankly I can see this being an issue he created or contributed to…but this during an era where he was perfectly balanced in his looseness and tightness of pencils…I believe because…

…well the A-Team seems to hit it out of the park and present what I think of as THE ❌-Men artwork when they work with Romita (see above in last issue)…and this is clearly not the A-Team…even though all the members, but for Dan Green are working on this page…and his replacement is Al, who’s part of the linage that goes back to Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, having trained under Burne Hogarth, at his Cartoonist and Illustrators School (we now know as SVA, the precursor to Kubert School, then SCAD, then CCS)…in other words…this really should not be happening…Vertigo is should not look this terrible, and she looks nearly better than everyone else here.

Towards the bottom right is stuffed Riptide AKA Janos Quested…honestly given all that is happening here…no additional notes. Which brings us to (spoiler/censored) Scalphunter Kodiak Noatak (a naming that is just not ok), and a reveal I am sure you have all guessed at, but I am keeping covered a bit, just in case); the shooter. Honestly, this not the worst drawing on the page…maybe the best…but it still is not correct and absolutely fails to deliver on any sense of fear…any emotional delivery that pays of what’s been building for years now. I will say this…the look on his face seems to be more of a commentary on how this is a failure in delivering on this moment and on how this is not they way to depict himself specifically. We feel you, you murderous horrible person.

Turning the page, signs of Romita Jr solidify. As, what was years of plotting (by whom…just you wait and see…or you already know) & slowly rolling out death, becomes the early stages of a massacre.

Sunder and five other Morlocks stand around a table in the tunnels, have now been told they have been hunted and cornered. Sunder asks a clarifying question of…this being a joke.

John Greycrow:* “Nope.”

*just going to pretend we don’t know what is obvious here.

Huge fan of the villainous soliloquy. Have been know to make comics inspired by this tradition:

And normally, it doesn’t fit well in this sort of context…especially after my critique of page one…but hear me out…somehow this works…when stretched over three panels…after a panel with “nope", and is juxtaposed over the four panels, when clearly presented by Al & Rominta Jr. and the A-Team (minus Green):

John Greycrow:

“I’m a serious man…”

“…engaged in a serious buisness.”

“And I never joke…”

“…with people who’re about to DIE!”

Claremont takes the trope, and pairs it with Romita Jr.’s cinematic pacing, of revealing him put together the gun over three panels on one tier and then in a long shot murders, as he shares his professional respect for the process of murder. Making clear his respect for their deaths.

This is maddening, because we continue to get these panels, sequences, pages that work on a level of artistry, and they are paired with something else entirely. It is like going to a movie and coming out frustrated.

Can you tell Savannah and I saw Supergirl yesterday. Milly Alcock was predictably set up.

Riptides villainous soliloquy…is actually more of a succinct introduction…heck…that’s more accurate in terms of John’s too…but it was carried over multiple panels…so the pacing made it seem big…Riptide’s is kind ineffective…but when he is wind with throwing stars coming out of him, he is a scene stealer.

Sunder is fine by the way. Bullets and little blades are not effecting him much.

So a still not quite right in terms of drawing Scrambler does his part through action and a kinda Peter Parker level of fighting banter:

Scrambler: “It’s our job. And we take pride…in doing it well.”

His touch on Sunder disrupts his mutation…and now his skin is vulnerable to the throwing stars.

THUP

THOK

THAK

THUP

John Greycrow takes his shot at Sunder.

When Sunder was carrying children in his arms, in that indelible Romita Jr. panel from No. 193, Sunder’s head was small, and his body was large. Here, on this page we have what looks like Charley Brown raised in a Mad Scientist Lab being fed staroids…his head is enormous…and the balance of the head and body ratio makes it seem like two different characters. I also, just prefer the look of the previous version. Spoiler: In the end, I don’t think we get back to that. This seems to be the look we get at the end of “to me my ❌-Men.”

Unnamed here, a Morlock “young woman” burns her way through stone to escape death. A panel rendered as we would expect and hope for.

Page turn, she shouts for Callisto’s help running through the tunnels as miniature longshot panels showcase the Murauders following and

WHAM!

an iconic depiction of Arclight’s intimidating power, her back blowing through rock sending the “young woman” flying.

I think I respect Harpoon here because of Glynis’ coloring…which seems at odds with what is PC…but honestly without that Harpoon is reduced to completely taking me out of the scene. Frustrated by their inability to be taken seriously in this context.

Page turn.

Claremont Narration: “The harpoon is metal in the Inuit’s hand…transmuted to raw energy the instant he throws it.”

“yaiAIERRGH!”

Her death cry and depiction is wholy effecting and well rendered as such. The agasent panel of her burnt corpse is exacting in its horrificness.

Callisto: “Cybelle…”

Completes a righting of the ship, nearly run off course before the page turn.

Banter in the tunnel connects the standoff…pause…which ends with adequate action from Vertigo and Arclight as the tunnel becomes a targeted natural disaster for the Morlocks.

And so, doing his best to seem serious The Piper summons alligators and bats…who come for the Murauders from down the tunnel, behind them.

Mid action and page… “Meanwhile”

School for Gifted Youngster has Dani tending to Brightwind, Logan cowboy chewing on the fence, and Rogue & Colossus bringing hay bails down from the barn. Apparently Logan is healing from something…I guess Rachel and Central Park was a lot.

Being called out by Rogue on this, means he acts like baby and slices up a pitch fork.

Piotr is concerned at the rate of healing…for sees something is wrong with Logan. Rogue thinks the personality issues are a result of him being out of an action scene.

I prefer this entire vibe.

Speaking of…the page goes on to have Kitty in the kitchen foraging for “munchies.” And Maggie takes her six pack of NEW COKE. They banter like it’s the 80’s and he is both her Dad and Headmaster of her School. He is one of those things. She however it the one pushing the, ‘this is a school’ and I should do my homework part. She needs the fuel…but won’t be doing supper. To much school work. She air walk phases through the ceiling…

Kitty: “Can’t write a thesis on ethical philosophy and save the world simotaniously, sir. But it’ll be fun to try.”

…right into her’s, Lockheed and Illyana’s room…where Illyana has been waiting for the “food brake.” I suspect Lockheed too!

We simply don’t get enough of this.

Logan mopping about is supposed by a teleporting out of thin air Kurt, who collapses in his arms…as he has his powers…but they are not working great. So both of them seem to be off it seems.

It’s almost as if the person orchestrating things in the background is fully aware of the contexts that lead to the Central Park and obviously set up what is underground…and what is happening with Ali on tour with Lila. Hmmmmm.

Page turn…and the two furry friends are shocked but the ground opening up under them to reveal an extra monster like purple furry animal sort emerge from the ground…a Morlock who comes to seek their aid.

“MORLOCKS…die!”

Inside a sheet is placed over the Morlocks corpse, as the ❌-Men, which now includes Betsy Braddock AKA Captain Britain AKA Psylocke confer. She is able to communicate what the Morlock saw. The Murauders. The death.

Maggie is bit on the nose here…sighting the SHOAH.

Ororo confirms, as leader of both ❌-Men and Morlocks, yes Logan…they are heading to battle.

She reminds Maggie his responsibility is to his students…The Mutants….not to be confused with Mutants…I only am making weird…dropping the New.

Maggie is resolved to not fail his students again. In his head.

Though Illyana joins them…as transport.

In the tunnels, Piotr want her and Kitty to stick with Ororo.

Kitty is in her feels, having connected to intimately with the community over the years.

Callisto is alive, but clearly this was a massacre already. Bodies…including alligators are in the tunnel.

Vertigo and Riptide attack.

Nightcrawler takes out Vertigo, but Riptide takes him down right after.

Ororo instructs Illyana to teleport wounded back to the infirmary at the school…and instructs to not bring reinforcements.

Illyana thinks Sharon can handle this, but also considers contacting Moira.

Ororo gives Rogue her jacket, as her skin has been exposed by the shredding from throwing stars.

Callisto is up and Logan is overconfident.

These pages have been underwhelming, but not a disaster…a slight improvement followes..and I can tell Bret and Romita Jr have figured out a balance for the moment. You can see them both on the page.

“Elsewhere”

John has cornered Annalee and some Morlock children. Annalee’s powers do not affect him as it would others with less disaplin. He tells her as much, as he murders her and the children. Mutants must die, is the job. Annalee’s nightmare of the past couple years ends. Her misery is over, as are her fleeting moments of brightness.

BLAM!

A circle from No. 193 is complete.

Kitty and Piotr, a romance we DO NOT ship, are haunted by the carnage around them in a panel…and hear a gunshot. THE gunshot. A

In the subsequent panel, a romance we DO ship is perfectly rendered, as Philippa (Arclight) casually leans (appropriately reduced in rendering) agains the tunnel wall along the train tracks, the lighting casts shadows, as John, his murderous gun casually rested on his shoulder, approaches closely.

John: “My job’s done Sweets. Your turn.”

Philippa: “I thought this’d be a rougher assignment.

Bridgette Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg’s Bonnie & Clyde sing in head, my minds eye picturing Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis’ as Mickey & Mallory Knox.

I am all in on the tale of John and Philippa.

John: “Be patient Arclight. Our day’s still young.”

Piotr on cue throws down with her…and then John thinks he has the jump on Kitty…reminder she was trained to be elite by The Yakuza…oh and she can phase…rendering John kinda helpless and hapless on this page.

The panels went from perfection back to trash as Kitty escapes and the Mutant gangs have regrouped. The discover the deaths as they go.

Encountering Murauders, there is a choice moment, when Scrambler thinks he can effect Ororo…only to have not gotten the memo…she doesn’t have powers to scramble…so she and Callisto simply bet the shit out him.

Unfortunately, throwing stars and Harpoons are an issue…Piotr is taken out by one of those.

When Scrambler makes another error…he attempts to effect Rogue, but her clothes shredded again by throwing stars, exposes her skin…and her contact of skin to his supersedes his conscious efforts to warp her powers…making it so she has his powers and psyche.

As this happens, Harpoon, having taken out Piotr, sets his sites on Rogue and Kitty leaps into action comes between Rogue and the harpoon, phasing rogue and taking on the brunt of the energy the Harpoon produces.

Piotr is fine it seems, and takes out Riptide…as the throwing stars as with Sunder have no effect. Piotr seems to brake his neck. And sets his sights on Harpoon. Piotr is unusually pissed.

But Harpoon and Scrambler have made their escape.

Rogue is shocked Piotr killed someone. And she thinks that’s something she or Logan are better suited for.

Again…these are gangs…not teams.

Kitty is stuck, phased. She cannot solidify after being hit with the electrical energy of the harpoon. A critical moment in this comics story. What comes from this is central to what’s to come. The rendering once again…does not meet the moment.

Rogue is blaming herself for being in harms way…which is annoying.

There is a lot of sanctimonious dialogue here. Claremont can do better here too!

Ororo even get into the act…a dying on this hill kinda nonsense.

Logan calls her out on the execution on her rallying cry.

Ororo blames her leadership.

Logan has a long life and some wisdom to chill here.

Ororo dispatches Logan to go murder the rest…they have their one captive to interrogate.

A mixed bag...that should have been better attended to. We will call it a classic still.

Bringing us to, what feels to me like the most iconic Marvel 25th Anniversary covers. While objectively John Buscema’s Avengers No. 273 evokes a road that could lead us back to Artemisia Gentileschi…

Self-portrait_as_the_Allegory_of_Painting_by_Artemisia_Gentileschi-1638-1639-1154x1536-2.jpg

Judith-and-Her-Maidservant-with-the-Head-of-Holofernes-Artemisia-Gentileschi-c.1624-Italy-.jpg

Artemisia_Gentileschi_-_Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_-_WGA8563.jpg

artemisia-gentileschi-nieznana-swieta-kolekcja-prywatna-Rome-5b3f0f6f7554c.jpeg

…Mike Zeck’s Captain America No. 323 also inches towards life like, and to a lesser degree his still compelling G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero No. 53 cover; elevated details and moodiness in Herb Trime’s Transformers No. 22; an influence on me already, Howard Post’s Care Bears No. 7 has him flexing a bit; Al Milgram’s West Coast Avengers No. 14; Barry Windsor-Smith’s Fantastic Four No. 296, which has been compelling to me since 1986, enough to nearly buy it at the time, but also as we have seen this temptation in his New Mutants No. 45; even Walt’s own us of shadow in Thor No. 373; the use of color especially in Judith Hunt’s Conan the King No. 37; in a raw sense Mark Beachum’s Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man Vol 1 120; and by letting Spidy be Spidy Rick Leonadri’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 282; we have a spectrum of covers which may all have offered a more dynamic angle and rendering to our eyes, than the cover of the issue we focus on here. While in another corner of Scott McCloud’s The Picture Plane triangle, cartoonists, as graphic designers admire…

…in the extreme John Romita Jr’s Web of Spider-Man No. 20; capturing as Rick did, the spirit of a Peter’s character, Joe Albelo’s Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham No. 12; and also in this corner, joining the selective few that have tempted me (and won out eventually) since their debut, Marie Severin’s Muppet Babies No. 10, finds itself in my mind on par with The Avengers, Care Bears, Fantastic Four and this X-Factor issue, which I am thinking falls closer to the middle of the Picture Plane than the rest of this lot. While the other thirteen cover artists missed the brief this time.

Walt has Scott in his usual mood, as far as we can tell, because by deign, his costume has him removed from our accessibility to the character. A misunderstanding that informs the character, his role in the ❌-Men, and makes for him to be the ideal representative for folks who identify with him like Jay Edidin of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men.

We open the comic to Erg, hearing something while roasting a hebrew national over an open fire in the tunnels. Seeking confirmation from fellow Morlock, Zeek, making his debut here. Zeek seems better suited for Walt’s other gig. Thor.

A number of Morlocks around them begin to confirm…

The page turn, provides the iconic introduction of the Murauders we should have gotten in Uncanny X-Men No. 211.

FALLING ANGEL!

Louise & Walter, with Bob Wiacek inks, Joe Rosen letters, and Petra Scottie’s colors on this page fully understand what is at stake here. Louise has been part of this storytelling the entire decade. She has always been present and aware.

Walt has penciled a page that has us entering into it with Arclight, who, through perspective is foreground and thus the largest figure on the double paged splash. Bellow her the middle ground has a 3D effect somehow while retaining Walts notoriously flat graphic cartooning, begins with John fires on the Morolocks. Centered is Harpoon, in the depth of the middle ground, who is unfortunately white washed here, though his anatomy seems to be drawn correctly otherwise, as he has thrown a harpoon into the back of a Morlock. Who in death is large and off centered, bringing our eye towards the front of this middle ground, the focal point of what is in the middle ground, bellow him a body shifts out eye back in this space. As we are released to explore the background; a chaotic mess of death and fear, that has depth and flats. This is where we spot Erg running with a Morlock in his arms.

The space in this section of the tunnel is an architectural marvel.

Page turn, we are happy to see Jean in WWIII’s arms. Her green and yellow contrasted with his red and white. Walt is unfrotinatly for us, to good a person to channel the established sexy times of butts and legs we had grown to expect from X-Factor comics. You’re not helping your case on this one, Bub.

Bellow these two old flirty friends, Jean carries Rusty’s body with her telekinesis, and Skids is floating along side. They are miles away, and on their heels, after encountering Freedom Force in Central Park…I am not loving the timing…I think I have it right…but the creators seemed unconcerned with my desire for minute by minute clarity of who is where and when.

Scott is barking out orders, as he, Hank and Bobby guard their escape. The postmortem happening (to catch readers up…per the Marvel/Stan’s way) while they flee…Scott is in he feels, Jean is attempting to translate for folks who have all known him since the early 60’s…guilt is presenting as impatience…WWIII seems more than over it…I don’t recall if this dynamic continues through Louise’ run…but I am over it.

We only have two more X-Factor issues after this. I was feeling done…in 1986…and just because I didn’t follow through with it then…doesn’t mean we have to now. In fact…as far as 1986 X-Factor is concerned…we are done after just one more issue. The third one comes two years from now.

Rusty’s role in this is part of my lack of care. Skids (who I do care about for the moment), is trying to refocus them on getting the hardly breathing Rusty above ground and back to the X-Factor Complex. In the middle of this, they can hear our POV, and actual care, Arty…screaming.

We can’t leave them until he is saved…I hope that’s what I have laid out here.

Skids want WWIII to rush Jean and Rusty home…WWIII is the best of this lot…and will get that done. Skids is fine skating along at her own pace. I wish this is how things stayed.

Scott, Hank, and Bobby…focus on the haunting screams.

Somehow they covered miles by foot (or maybe skating on ice bridges) between the page turn, cause they are witnessing harpoons in Morlock backs and Erg carrying the Morlock…who I think I recognize, but that sort of clarity is not always Walt’s strength.

There is a tiny drawing of Philippa in the background that represents how far Walt is committed to sexy times. We will take it…as we are shipping her and John now.

I am pretty sure Erg my hunch is right, and it is Beautiful Dreamer in his arms…he just stacked…oops…speaking of cute couples. I hope they make out of this and find themselves on homesteading on a farm one day.

Harpoon v Beast is quick and not great.

Bobby ties to turn the tide.

Philippa attempts to counter what Scott is cooking up.

Scott get them to run…because Philippa is board. I mean, honestly, I get that feel.

Erg and Beautiful Dreamer are all we can see in terms of healthy Morlocks…honestly…there are no others we can see…there should be some bodies. I think Louise and Walt are trying to make comics for me, as if I was 10. I was 11, thank you very much.

Skids is trying to confirm she understands the ❌-Terminators and ❌-Factor branding and reality right. And she is still not getting it. She buys they are not one and the same…and even though Rusty was fine with ❌-Factor, she figures they brainwashed him…and by the time they get to surface and rooftop, they are now video chatting (prophets of the future) with Cameron Hodge…and Skids is like…but he is ❌-Factor’s PR guy. And she finally gets who they are…but has a real understanding of the effects of the propaganda and that alone means…❌-Factor sucks and she need to make run for it. WWIII tries to stop her, as she calls out whomever had this terrible idea…I think that is WWIII…and/or Cam.

Jean, Chuck’s fave student, is a JERK!…and attempts to contain SKIDS in a bunch of telekinetically manipulated scrap metal. She does so, while instructing her to stay with Rusty and protect him. Jean graduated with honors from Chuck’s School for Gifted Educators. For sure.

Skid’s character design and context will change dramatically. A step, I think Louise felt was necessary for her growth and agency, but in doing so, the paradox of her context is released, and my interest evaporates. My interest may have remained if this had not happened.

Another character design and context change that disrupted my interest was with Caliban, who is fully an X-Factor character at this point. Not till the film version of Logan did I return to interest in him. He really has been instrumental to the story here, and has grown on me. One of the few times I loved Chuck was in the dynamics Caliban and Chuck have in Logan.

Here on the page turn of this issue, we have what I consider to be Caliban’s best conditions for success. He has his iconic Shushi logo on, and is accompanied by our POV team of Artie and Leech. If I have regrets here…it is my abandonment of Artie and Leech as a reader. We will miss them terribly soon enough…

Our three innocent fast friends walk the tunnels, comforted by each other. Because they are with Leech, Artie cannot communicate with his mutation’s visual lexicon, and Caliban cannot use his mutant tracking…Caliban attempts to walk far enough away, so as he can sense the presence of other mutants…because they can hear the screaming…if he had made it, he would have sensed who has been tracking them, with his own heightened senses…

Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Iron Fist character Sabertooth AKA Victor Creed; who has tangled also with Coleen Wing, Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Claire Temple, Peter Parker, Felicia Hardy, Mary Jane, Joe Robertson; in his seventh appearance, is encountering a fellow mutant for the first time here.

Sabertooth will make a dozen appearances, in which I believe we never catch wind of what he does to Silverfox and thus, we never hear about the full connections between Logan and him…it may come up, as I do have plans to read a handful of issues of Wolverine that take place after we skip No. 10, where that story is told. I find Sabertooth to be irrelevant to the story, beyond his role as a Marauder.

Poor Caliban is tackled and scratched. Walt diminishes the horror of this down to like a “2 1/2'“…like this is a kinda lame introduction…I think Artie and Leech can take this bellow average drawn guy down.

Anatomy issues are back.

Leech shoves Artie into a drain pipe.

Scott, Bobby, and Hank have arrived…Scott blasting says something that confuses me here:

“He was trying to kill us, Beast…”

When?…Where?…I need my editors note.

Because Leech has the vantage point, is blocking the drain, and Artie cannot communicate, Scott…who thinks he has actually taken out Sabertooth, leads the three ❌-Factor pros away from whom they are attempting to save. Leaving Leech and Artie the task of trying to stuff Caliban in a drain tube, before Sabertooth awakes…which by millimeters they are successful at doing.

Leech and Artie are working the problems.

Hurrah! “Meanwhile, in the Pentagon…” Tish is on the screen, reporting the leaked news orchestrated by Mystique, the WWIII is the financial backer for ❌-Factor and that he is Angel…and thus…Freedom Force is hopeful the ruse will be exposed, thanks to an assist from governmental computing. Tax dollars at work. Blob is finding this hilarious.

As Chairwoman, Candy, in Philly is calling a board meeting to order at the Worthington Building, as an employee walks in to expose the reality that WWIII is a mutant and they are backing ❌-Factor.

Candy💭: “Blast! Warren…”

…also…they haven’t communicated in weeks…and they are supposedly sleeping together…this is her thinking.

She leaves the meeting for NYC.

Where some Doc pal of Cam’s, is examining Rusty…

As Cam videos in to showcase Tish’s reporting.

WWIII world comes crashing down around him.

Back in the tunnels…sorry The Alley…Marauder, Blockbuster debuts…completely forgot about this tool. Basically, Sunder, but the uncool Marauders version. He knocks poor Tar Baby into Ape…who deserve a better scene than this.

They are stuck together…’cause tar.

Apparently Vertigo is back in action…when Bobby shows and tries to freeze Blockbuster….but is then thrown off balance by a case of vertigo. Scott blast Blockbuster as he breaks free from ice. And then Scott, still balsting, gets the vertigo too. Hank pops in to knock he off her game.

Basic superhero fighting hijinks.

Erg and Beautiful Dreamer are reunited with their friends Tar and Ape…who I am now shipping too. I think there is some really beautiful romance happening in the gutters of this comic. Saving it from itself.

Scott just lets the murders go…because they are banged up. Ummmm….

Leech and Artie come out the other end of their drain pipe, and Leech pleads for his new BFF to make a run for it…allowing Artie’s powers to return and from him show us a nice image of Scott, Hank and Bobby.

Eye on the prize, Artie.

He passes bodies.

At X-Factor Complex, the choice of better medical care at hospital v potential arrest there, is keeping Rusty on the table for now…plus WWIII is distracted by everything falling apart. Skids is passed out.

Not perfect, but I kinda love the lighting and how the camera has pulled out to give us a moment to take this in here. Jean is centered.

Jean is basically, get over yourself. You did your best, WWIII.

They are coming to terms with the events that have unfolded over the 10 issues of X-Factor. They are at a place where, it is what it is. Including the part about Scott being not what Jean needs. He is a mess.

WWIII kissed the top of her head as they comfort each other.

AND Candy walks in.

Candy: “I’ve overlooked you Philandering before, but this is the limit! And you Jean Grey…haven’t you wreaked enough relationships? Enough LIVES? You’re a mutant all right? But your real power is to make men fall in love with you and destroy them! Warren…Angel…you can tee your Vice Presidency and you can SHOVE it!”

And with that she walks out of, “to me my ❌-Men.”

Rusty is apparently well enough to be watched by a groggy Skids…who was just awoken by Candy’s walk off.

Jean tells WWIII to go after Candy.

Jean is headed to the tunnels to help Scott and the boys save Artie.

Warren makes the fateful call to ignore Jean’s instructions, and Candy’s wisdom…and follow his heart after Jean instead.

Bellow, under NYC, Sabertooth is about to take out another Morlock. As Harpoon watches his teammate...She however can handle herself...and before Harpoon can assist, En Sabah Nur appears out of nowhere...no longer in So Cal…and takes out Harpoon, and then requites the Morlock, Plague, anointing her Pestilence, and revealing his plans for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…they teleport away.

With Jean and WWIII on the hunt, we are treated to an Arclight panel…a new Marauder…the under uderappreciated Prism makes his debut…and Scott, Hank and Bobby make their approach. Scott takes out Arclight…damn…so Prism lights up and takes out the room…then runs into Jean…who basically shatters him against a wall.

Arclight, recovered (that’s my girl), and grabs Scrambler, knocked out…she is just my cup of tea. The escape from Jean.

Jean now has to telekenticly drag Hank and Scott’s bodies out of the tunnels. Bobby creates an ice barrier….but this causes Angel to be stuck…WWIII makes the call…he really is not thinking…and this is really a contrived context…but we will dispel with the inner critique.

Jean is back to sexy time.

Angel is found by Artie (I think)…or they just run into each other. A cute moment.

But, they have been concerned by Vertigo, Harpoon and Blockbuster.

WWIII has Artie make a run for it…and try and get back to the X-Factor Complex on his own.

In time for Vertigo to take on Angel, and then Blockbuster overpowers him as he has vertigo…breaking his wings….and then Harpoon crucifi❌es, for the second time in the Morlock tunnels…we are taking this exit…and not continuing with Liouse and En Sabah Nur’s plans…his wings, harpooned to a Morlock tunnel wall. Death is promised one way or another.

Thor will be our final Marvel 25th Anniversary cover in our readings of “to me my ❌-Men.” If I ever do actually return to this approach; exploring the expanding my reading of the Marvel story that impacted this period of my life and informed my development as a cartoonist, it would mean the Fantastic Four No. 296 would be included, as She-Hulk would become the focus. I am on the hunt to complete a collection of these issues. I have a few more laying about. We got treated to six of them here. The first being Alpha Flight No. 40, naturally. Here we have Thor, our final 25th Anniversary cover issue.

I believe, with this, we are done fixating on the poster which hung on my wall as a kid. Our reading of “to me my ❌-Men,” spans for the most part a six year period, consecrating on, only 3 years, thus far. With three, equally focused, years remaining. We really have and will continue to attempt to stay within comics that pertain to the Mutants story in this period of the Claremont Run.

It is debatable if I have done that, as I allowed for The Hand to influence the breadth of the tale, as much as mutants. Seeking opportunities to allow for connective representation to slip in when it informs what is central. The ❌-Men leading up to our ending. Wolverine being my on-ramp to that story, despite the cartoon versions of Spidy, Iceman, and Firestar, as well as, the Electric Companies legitimate claims…when it comes to source material and on-ramp…Logan v The Hand is how this began for me.

We have stuck with the Marvel Universe, I was attempting to consume from 5th Grader-the summer before Freshman Year of High School. It spans my transition from being a Berkeley Kid to being a Mill Valley kid. Which seemed worlds apart. This story providing stabilizing constancy in my life, that may have helped save me.

This poster making the journey across The Bay, and helping represent consistency in my personal space. I didn't need, nor did I want more. I wanted this fictional world, that was just bringing to shape my future, to be refined and limited in scope.

Here I am at 51, a cartoonist, a comics educator and historian, a teacher focused on the care and development of 3, 4 & 5-year-olds, trying to reflect on a time that shaped who I am, but also revisiting the joy and fandom that was developing during this critical developmental stage.

But this is not simply a focus on a few years and how they inform this year or so, I am in now. This began before even my first dabbling with it in the late 70’s, Marvel’s story exists beyond its own 87 year, and for me this especially goes beyond a ‘84 encountering of Wolverine; for the first time on the page. Because of the path these comics impacted, I ended up not just making comics, but consuming widely, learning, thinking, discussing, and living in a industries that informed my focus as a child. And now I tend to point this limited view at a variety of contexts, because within this limited perspective is connective tissue that relates beyond it.

A discussion about the business, making, and audience experience in films that are branded similarly to these comics is low hanging fruit to me. But it has its own important populist and societal implications, beyond the pop culture appearances.

This poster was celebrating a subculture, that was barely known by name, save the names Spider-Man and to a lesser extent The Hulk. And yet constantly in surprising spaces, I would encounter others with causal awareness to deep understanding, all having an intimate connection…because this is how comics work.

The global awareness beyond Spider-Man, because of the effort of Stan Lee, and the North American familiarity with The Hulk, because of Bill Bixby’s TV performance as Bruce Banner, made for an illusion of wide understanding. However, our focus here, was not until an X-Men cartoon, when I was Junior in High School. When had been put off by the story I was reading on the page, came out. That folks were becoming aware of the story that had shaped me to that point.

What they were consuming was some Bizarro World version. I found it, at the time, unwatchable. I have since come around to appreciate it on its own terms, and have grown to find excitement in X-Men ‘97; a continuation of this story. The world doesn’t wait or care for us. It has its own plans, and billions of others to find an audience amongst. The cartoon had prepared me. Hardened me to what the film in 2000 would bring to a more global market.

While expanding numbers of people celebrated the films arrival and discovered the the mutants story for the first time, I had matured into someone who was nuanced enough to find joy in it, critique it on its own merit, but also speak to how it failed to reflect what I was consuming back in the better half of the 80’s. Of the better part of the Claremont Run in my biased, but informed opinions. This diary being, perhaps my final concerted efforts to examine and understand exactly why what has been so unsatisfactory to what I am witnessing the world consume when it comes to the ❌-Men. So when Marvel has full control of the telling of the story to a receptive global audience, I may see, hear, learn, and maybe even succinctly communicate why this time it is different. Harboring hope it is.

As it was for, an illusion perhaps, Spider-Man, who had been through this process on a global scale to the point that the film version we subsequently saw, seemed to work on all levels. Some quibbled, but in comparison to the X-Men, it really seemed like an achievement as an adaptation.

That is until Marvel made their own film. Iron Man in 2008 simply changed the expectations of both the global audience, who had developed a apatite, but also hardened their expectations on quality and flavor of “superhero films.” Which were not on the level of a Star Wars, a Lord of the Rings, or an Indiana Jones film’s expectation. Iron Man flirted with something beyond the expectations for the global audiences, something new, additive. It impacted global culture, but also in a refined and exacting way presented an accurate vibe and communication from the pages of the source materials.

I have not experienced this when it comes to the ❌-Men. I experience warping of narrative, mashed up gross mischaracterizations, derivatives of messages, and mangled vibes.

Personally, Iron Man immediately reawaken a level of expectation that was frustrated by the reality, I was intimately familiar with. I had become a bit of expert on what had happened on the business side, to allow for my frustrations.

While becoming a bit of an expert on how the source materials were created, and was able to create my own comics on an increasingly higher level. One that pulled me away from the dream of a child, in the direction of certain obscurity. As it was the obscurity in the first place that insulated me from struggle.

For a throw away character, Iron Man, and for the less serious and less influential on the comics market and medium, Avengers, I fully understood the emotions as this audience member, and I was beginning to understand the global market’s nuanced consumption habits of this story in multiple mediums now.

It awoke in me a fear, that not only did the ❌-Men represent marginalization to the global audience, they have been representing erasure. Something the global audience, by design is obscured from.

The Avengers have always been about accessibility; a populist representation. An iconic identity that buys into the illusions of the binary of heroics and villianism. The coming drama contains a contrast with this binary, by presenting a political spectrum of nuances and diverse characterization that challenges the rigidity of a Steve Rodgers, and the challenging of capitalist winners and losers we see in Tony Stark. The Avengers also continued a superhero culture, that represent a safe space for a secular fantasy in deity cultural consumption, not simply just being Thor, as it began with Superman. And then there is the intimate binary interior struggles of being human, where we can see the struggle of control and release of control in The Hulk. One that feeds into our war machines, and the American narratives of the individual be central to their story, which is how those who are free find themselves migrated to this cowboy cultural landscape.

These being globally basic experiences, and spaces, or narratives of America has been desalinating as propaganda over 250 years…well the Avengers, like the Dude, abide. Increasing nuances and complications, that received pushback, as they expose our struggles as humans with identity politics and boarders, as we collectively experience base fears of the unknown. There has been a equation to how comfortable Disney is with this.

A comic about horror, lust, diversity, marginalization, and increasing complexity of relationships from friendship, to romance, to what is family. One that directly interrogates, who, what, where, when, how, why, am I…and they are, from the perspective of the other. Where you are invited to openly identify with being the other…and to mingle with and build community with them…adapting that accurately on a global scale.

Admitting that comics which centered a “gang,” of “unique,” “individuals,” “others” is what actually drove the medium of comics into your home on a global scale…not the ones that were not especially threatening to global stability, government controls, amassed wealth amongst the few…that actually helped in solidifying a sense of control and stability for those few, controlling the governments that have global reach and influences. Not the ones that simply toy with debating, but actually come from a place of presenting small, lived experiences, intimacy, parol, and try to carve out safety…and debate what that space looks like…and what is the individual and collectives responsibilities to a world the constantly tell you…it does not care…unless you appear as a threat…and then you having no intensions to be so, now occupy unwanted and threatening residency in their minds. This being a story about you from that perspective. Just wanting to not be hasseled, and let be…that kinda cowboy. The one that is just trying to survive passing through. Or that town…the one that isn’t asking for more than the basic chance of survival. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the ability to help who fear you. When all you want to do is romantic and/or hang at the mall.

A film accurately based on a comic, authorized through inclusion, by what seemed to be part of the ruling class. As Chris Claremont appeared to be harmless to the establishment…as he was left to collaborate for sixteen years and dismantle the market shares of the trinity (DC’s Superman, Batman, and Wonder Women); as they had just driven complicating women and children out of control over the market place; Helen Honig Meyer…leaving in their place, Stan Lee & Steve Ditko’s…but also John Romita Sr.’s Spider-Man. Opening the door for Claremont and friend’s adaptation of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s The X-Men. But for pendulum to over chorect for the wolfs had entered into the Spidy and X-Offices…and progress had build conditions for a market place to be taken over by Dude Bro extremists (Image founders…beloved on balance). Which in concert with capitalist greed, brought the marketplace crashing down. And we have been collectively, trying in our corners of the globe to build back better, stronger…with mixed results…that may actually pay off with a sense of equitability and may even present to the globe some films that take what was erased and rewritten; presenting them properly…like it was Iron Man…and it was 2008. For most folks are not exactly feeling passive stability and centralized powers these days…the horse bucked and is out of the barn now. Freedom, during the apocalypse, is possible; as the world seems perpetually ending. Maybe now is a time Marvel’s actual story about Chris Claremont’s most influential and disruptive X-Men stories are going to go global. The ones where it is Magneto who makes sense, where Chuck is absent, where death of characters feel like an actual possibility. Perhaps even stick…if they do it my way (nah).

I was able to see, am able to see now, what is missing and why it is missing, from the global discussion of the characters in this poster that hung on my wall as a child. I can even now, understand more clearly why such a small thing matters personally, but also serves as representative of connective tissues for a global community.

This diary has perhaps always come off as the diary of a mad man.

However, perhaps unfortinatly, I may actually just be a sain person, oversharing to a limited audience (hopefully), something in reflection on their part provides something to connect with, mull over, and inform their own understanding of self, the world, and a story that impacts as it does…when it does. When we make these things, we don’t always know what we do…and when they do it. In fact, I think that is the norm in Art. Which is a bummer to returns on investments and sustainability in the life of an Artist.

At the time, 1986, primarily within those three years (1984-1986), we have here, the appearance of 90% of the characters depicted on this poster. When you look at all the films and television made by all the collective studios adapting Marvel comics, they have brought to screen 2/3’s of those on this poster within just shy of 30 years. By the end of this year, we assume at this point, with Avengers: Doomsday out, we will call it just shy of 50% of them will have made an appearance in what we collectivly understand is a connected universe; that is ALSO been part of a production adaptation that was created by Marvel themselves. They have accomplished this within a generation. Who knows…maybe within another generation they will have brought the Iron Man treatment to each of these characters in this poster. Shrug.

I had never allowed myself such hope, until I saw She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Deadpool v Wolverine. I am excited once again by the prospect.

We make our escape into the pages of Thor, turning the page from the aforementioned of Walt’s covers.

“Here dwell the storied figures of ancient LEGEND…those who were old when the universe was young or so the minstrels tell us.” Walt tells us.

Thor is returning to Midgard after some time, we are told. When he gets a twinge that could be age or enemy…or something else. By pages end, he is above NYC. He is having trouble traveling to Muspelheim, even though he is in Midgard, and should be able to travel through Hel on earth. So closed, the way, Thor takes to a cot in an apartment he has kept…but its conditions will distract his concentration…and the Avengers mansion is not place contemplate. He tries what Batman, Spider-Man and Daredevil find of comfort in these moments…the side of a skyscraper.

Unfortunately he just becomes distracted as they do, by a crime bellow he must address. He falls into mortal concerns.

“In the end, death is always the answer to every question.”

“not the answer for a God.”

On Asgard, construction to house a treasure; a weapon; for safe keeping. The sword of Surtur will rest till claimed at the end of time.

A ways away, Volstagg sits in his home, in a room, where twin boys sleep, and awake thinking he might be Santa…only to be told by this stranger…a supposed friend to their Mom’s friend Thor, that their Mom is dead and the stranger plans to raise them up, till they are able to survive on their own. They boys find this absurd…and call for their Mom. Naive, Volstagg, we love ye…

We leave Kevin and Mick be...

West side of Lower Manhattan, lumberjack Thor AKA Sigurd Jerlson, drops in on his friend and employer, Jerry Sapristi, a cousin of Nick Fury...he provides Thor with construction gigs.

But not this time…Thor tells him his Dad has passed.

Thor had saved a girl, but Jerry’s inquiry reveals that didn’t become a lasting romance.

Thor tries to continue on his way, but Jerry insists his wife would welcome a visit and that Thor could use some home cooking.

Tina, is not on the same page. She is already cooking for a family of eight; Ernesto, Pietro, Giovanni, Maria, Rosa, and Gabriella. I kinda love Tina. I wish her out of this trope of a life.

“I clobber Jerry later.”

She’s got this handled.

Thor lightens up the home, with hijinks…and Tina livens up this comic with her presence in it.

On Asgard, a raven delivers a message to Balder…who calls Heimdall…putting him in charge watching over the realm.

As Thor treats the Sapristi’s to a story about the ferryman who made him walk the long way, only to discover when he got to his destination…that ferryman was his Dad. They are enjoying nature, as he tells this story to them. And he is approached by frogs. One leaps into his hand. An old friend from his FrogThor days. The frog provides him alarming news. He turns into Thor in front them them and heads to the underground. As Hela, the goddess of death, observes from her throne room.

Thor arrives precisely at the moment we left off in X-Factor, WWIII is in agony hung as a crucifi❌, with Marauders still present. Thor battles them, and they scurry off. Thor stands guard as foot steps aproach and WWIII has fallen unconscious.

A Barry Windsor-Smith cover, feeling a bit Mœbius, for its use of dipped nib in ink and the figurativation they provide, has Piotr calling out:

“Clear out, KIDS—this is a job for the ❌-Men,” as two of The Mutants and Maggie look on from our vantage point, at Piotr, Kitty, a fallen Kurt, being carried by Ororo, who have broken through the tunnel wall and have Callisto and unnamed Morlock following them. Refugees from a massacre, all.

We open the cover to find the words:

STAN LEE presents BLOODY SUNDAY staring the NEW MUTANTS

Jackson Guice, the X-Factor turned New Mutants penciler, accompanied by his new partner, the icon, Kyle Baker, and the portion of the A-Team; that is Glynis, Tom & Chris, render and write a page reintroducing us, as is tradition…this could be your on-ramp…to The School of Gifted Youngster where:

“…as they’re about to discover—nowhere on Earth may be safe haven for mutants anymore.”

The Mutants; Amara, Berto, Rahne, Dani, Sam are in the hallway, seconding to a noise coming from the ❌-Men’s wing of the School. They find their classmates; Illyana, Doug, Warlock investigating a burnt whole in the middle of the elevator doors. Lockheed had blown a small dragon sized hole in them. Sam cannonball’s down the elevator shaft, he and Dani coordinating like the gang leaders they are. Dani heads out towards the stable to check on Brightwind and then to head off Lockheed at Warlocks’ self friend Blackbird’s Hanger. At the circular entrance outside the front of the school looming over it, filling the sky is, Death.

As Dani, a valkyrie, summons subconsciously, Death whenever the dying are at hand.

“…Muir Isle…”

We are treated two book end panels on a page of Moira’s morning routine being interrupted by Illyana’s teleporting in through the gate to Limbo, her mutation produces. The first panel keeps it simple with muted tones of morning sunrise’s effect on splashing onto rock, framed by the sky and sea. On its own it is simply beautiful. The last panel shapes and lines are similarly lit graphic elements that collectively bring the two shadowed figures to a place of refined superheo action and magic. Refined simple art.

Illyana has the naked, fresh out of the shower, Moira sitting uncomfortably in Limbo, where she shows a window back to Earth, where Lockheed is flying around Blackwing. Illyana conjures a metal outfit, admiring it is not exactly Moira’s vibe. Illyana, only has black magic to work with, per Belasco’s kidnapping and raising her up this way. Illyana continues the show, designed to catch Moira and us up on what has driven Illyana to Moira.

We see that past, where Sam, Warlock, and Lockheed are startled, when the hole in the wall on the cover, and a similar image emerges. Guice and Baker’s version has Kitty phased, as she was stuck when we last saw her in the comics; Ororo, Rogue, dragging a bandaged Kurt; Callisto; Piotr; and a much smaller Sunder is still big enough to carry a wounded Morlock like a sac of potatoes. Others behind them. Sunder then in agony trips into the school’s under ground hanger…he barely made it to safety. His body gives out there. Moira and Illyana emerge in the now.

Maggie, has with him, Tom, Sharron, and Bets. Moira advises Maggie, this will require setting up combat triage protocols. He follows the Doctor’s lead.

Kitty reunites with her roommates, Illyana and Lockheed. Who are not unfazed by her phased form.

Ororo gathers around the senior members of the school to bering everyone up to speed on the Morlocks, Murauder’s and the X-Men. The murder.

Motivation remains unknown. Kitty and Kurt are the concerns at this point.

Logan is still behind, tasked with bringing in a prisoner to interrogate, as we already know. The students are to follow Moira’s instruction in assisting her. The X-Men are to finish evacuation of the Morlocks and then create a security perimeter.

“If the Marauders come visiting…I wish them to have a proper welcome.”

She speaks of hope to Callisto, who has concerns for those of their people left behind.

They work through the night, unawares of the new day’s sun approaching.

“There is blood everywhere.”

Maggie is showing in crisis, he doesn’t take time to suffer fools. Sam is concerned and lets him know, as he is concerned for mental wellbeing in the moment. Sunder is an unruly patient, making for a challenge to treat from the human professional medical staff they have in Moira and Sharron. Not that Maggie’s solution of encaging him in metal was how you treat a patient. Moira has Karma posses Sunder, as she needs to amputate his leg, but it is to much, and Betsy interjects and showcases she is more than an able telepath…she is more then Maggie understood.

Dani is haunted by Death, and sits in the corner of the hanger, cornered by the death around them. Sam turns his attention to her.

Berto, who stormed off because he is the fool that Maggie had to suffer, is brooding towards the kitchen where Rahne has taken up the role of hospital kitchen chef…he belittles this role and they get into it. His emotional immaturity is disregulating what needs to be deescalated. Sam, concerned with Dani, has lost his cool, and yells at two in the kitchen, as the two in the hall pass.

Dani (towards the underclassmen, not Sam): “How dare you behave like this—no wonder we’re called “X-Babies.”

Dani and Sam attempt to turn this into a teachable moment and have them clean up the kitchen.

Doug is trying to find out what Warlock is thinking, as Warlock has all his sensors trying to perceive the world around them…for security. Ones concern for introspection and the other for defense in crisis. These moments are interesting in terms of character development.

Xuân’s in Maggie’s office, attempting to call her siblings; Leong and Nga. Who we last saw kidnapped and aged up by Spiral and Mojo, as members of the Bratpack. No answer. We learn that Kitty’s phasing is so that she can’t be teleported to Limbo…and this Illyana was unable to do her Black Magic on her to attempt and make her solid. Illyana teleports Xuân to go get her family, as Doug and Warlock approach.

Doug and Warlock are highly concerned, as next they track down Dani, Sam, Rahne and Berto in the kitchen. Dani hears what they have to share…and Dani combines this with the sense…nobody has died since Death appeared…and now there is concern that the Death is coming for whatever is happening with Xuân’s family.

Lower East Side, Manhattan;

KLIK—-whirrr BWHAMM!

…it was dark in the room that Illyana and Xuân teleported into…a light switched to on.

Meanwhile, a student meeting is wasting time from Dani’s perspective. Berto has set his bullying on Doug. Doug is not putting up with, being held back by Warlock. Sam is trying to quell it while agreeing with Doug, who was being mature in trying to at least let the X-Men know. Dani is dismissive of this, as time I short, and they are overwhelmed…or at least we had seen Maggie wasn’t being receptive earlier. They vote…and now there is hole in the tunnels made by Amara…with students in the tunnel…when they were told to stay put. Their efforts to not be X-Babies undermined by them being X-Babies. Warlock turns into a delorean and they drive off through the tunnel.

I was afraid of this…Doug and Warlock were spooked by Magus…Warlock’s unnecessary arch of a Dad.

They arrive at the scene that is a fire after explosion in Xuân’s family apartment…Illyana and Xuân blame the Murauders…without evidence. Warlock’s alarms go off and they rush back into the tunnels and Magus waiting clutches.

My soft and aging heart got the best of me, and I have let in a nagging sense of curiosity enable a dormant urge towards a completist I tend to reject outright. And so a kernel of storytelling is being unearthed here, despite nearly everything I normally head is telling me to let it go. Not only is Magus with us, but we now turn to an issue of Power Pack that I fear does not hold up to the standards I harbor.

The irony being, the penciler here, has done excellent work, that I am rejecting from “to me my ❌-Men.

*Louise Simonson & Jon Bogfanove’s X-Terminators* c. 1988

SVA alumni, Jon Bogdanove, debut at Marvel was an Alpha Flight issue. He sticks with an ❌-office book, by becoming Power Packs artist, and handful of issues into here, after like Bret, after working on Soloman Kane. While being the Power Pack penciler, he will work on a crossover X-Men and Fantastic Four and then another limited series the above X-Terminators Louise. By this point he has mastered cartooning. However, for it work, the conditions must be right. When he is given something that not grounded in reality, the design instincts send him off the rails. And unfortunately for us, our story here in 1988 will become a bridge to far for a moment, much like Magus is to me.

We have no option but to go through this to get where we want to be in the end. However, we don’t need to follow the completist mindset in that portion of the story, as it is not as grounded and there for relevant as the Mutant Massacre.

Bogfanove ends up penciling just scores of Marvel comics. I am curious what his career looks like from there. Here we are, maybe just five issues into it and…this Power Pack cover, shows us that…well…it guest stars Wolverine and ❌-Factor…and has Sabertooth on the cover…still…as we turn the page, I question my choices here.

Wait…this issue is $1!?! It is the only one that is…that can’t be right…

❌-Factor is on the news as the Powers family enjoys some popcorn. A debate about whom ❌-Factor would side with is shared in hushed tones…them or ❌-Terminators would hunt down ❌-Men, Morlocks, or even Franklin. Louise is keeping the confusion fresh here. Family chaos turns to bed time. And Franklin Richards is sleeping over.

In the middle of the night Leech, holding Artie…no Caliban?..in his arms appears in the boy’s room. It’s a projection…from Artie? Clarity will become a strength for Bogfanove, but just like the aesthetics…he simply is not there yet. Total bummer. So Power Pack return once again to the tunnels, where once they were kidnapped. First concern…alligators.

John, who looks not at all like himself…scary…is murdering. Leech has Caliban in the drain pipe.

Dead Morlocks and Alligators are found by the children. They are attacked from above by not Wolverine (they think it’s him at first…a nice touch)…Sabertooth.

The Powers Kids hold their own. Escape. Run into Logan…who also looks off. He is on his quest for a Murauder to bring back to Ororo…runs off.

The kids vote to stick together and find Leech and then leave.

They encounter Annalee’s body…and other Morlock children. One looks like Vera…confusing.

At the X-Factor Complex Erg, Beautiful Dreamer, Tar and Ape have been rescued by Scott, Hank, Jean, and Bobby. Skids gives Tar a big hug…not stick ‘cause of Skids powers…nice to see.

Jean and Scott are in a bit of a postmortem here…but not much is resolved…like at all. Scott goes back to the tunnels.

Power pack finds Leech and Caliban…and thus loose their powers being around Leech. So Harpoon, Arclight, and Scrambler run into them…not sure why these three…last we saw Harpoon, he was running away from Thor with Vertigo and Blockbuster. Still shipping Arclight…with John…who she and Scrambler left…I guess. Franklin has Leech back away…powers are activated. It’s all a bit silly..and the art could be…would be better two years from now. Scott shows…helps with Scrambler. Arclight goes down from Jack. Scrambler and Harpoon pull her away to safety. The rest of ❌-factor (minus WWIII) shows to help. Leech and Caliban go with X-Factor…which honestly makes this worth our while.

The final page of the Powers kids regrouping above ground in the pink hue of morning…it shows us a sign of Bogfanove’s future.

A Barry Windsor-Smith cover ties in events that supersedes and informs Mutant Massacre, as it features his Logan. We are promised Wolverine v Sabertooth…we are told it is round 1! Is this their first encounter? Being from the future, we have our answer.

Hah…this title:

THE LAST RUN

Rick Leonardi & The A-Team interiors. He will get to a point with these guest spots, were he nails it. This is not that point.

We are finally seeing Logan follow through on Ororo’s instructions we have heard across issues now. He tracks over dead and dying Morlock bodies…and rats. Bets mind links with him, which makes him pissy, to tell him what he already knows, per Ororo’s instructions. Bring back a living Murauder. Bets and Logan get off on the wrong foot here.

Bets 💭: “Of all the conceited, arrogant, bloody FOOLS—! Problem is, do I mean Wolverine…or myself?!”

I think like this.

She takes the Cerebro helmet off, that Kitty fixed at the beginning of this chapter. She has not found survivors, beyond those in the care at the school.

Maggie, Moira, Callisto, Ororo, and Sharon hover around another lost Morlock, in their care.

Callisto is resolute in not bringing them to others care. She believes their bigotry would fail them quicker than Moira and Sharron.

Ororo thinks of the nuanced differences between the two groups who call her leader. One being resolute on living in a separate society and the other holding a principle to look beyond the hate for them and try and make inroad by protecting the sanctity of life, even when hate is in its heart.

Piotr observes Kitty in her special containment chamber. Ororo checks in. No change.

Piotr’s murderous angst has effected Ororo. She has arrived at a point of internal conflict. As she has a code…murder is too far for her to bring herself to…and yet…Piotr’s gentle soul…has her questioning her resolve.

We have some really nice panels from Leonardi and the A-Team of Ororo leaving and running in the forest to the waters edge and jumping off a cliff into it.

Piotr had said he was following Ororo, but he is outside Bets door and…his thoughts are in pain and disjointed, per Bets.

Piotr: “… h e l p m e…”

His mass collapses on her.

Tom is dressed as Rambo, and is accompanied by Rogue…who is really in one of his better outfits…black suit, dark green top, Storms leather vest, white punk belt, lime green swashbuckling boots. Bets mind links them in for help. Rogue flys off from the Hanger’s hole in the wall.

Rogue lifts Piotr off, as Moira, Maggie, and Callisto approach. Maggie is not at all helpful here.

Logan is trying to reach Bets…but she is not at her station…Logan has the sent of ❌-Factor and Murauders, amongst Morlocks. He is struck by the fact that Scott, WWIII, Bobby and Hank are associated with ❌-Factor…who is hunting mutants. Logan smells a female sent, one he knows as well as his own. Must be a mistake…and then he is attacked from behind.

Rogue is trying to track down Ororo, as Piotr never did and now there is an issue there. Ororo is out of the water and ripping her clothes off…running naked in the woods.

Moira has Piotr on a table in his Colossus form. She has no readings of life…normal in this form…Bets psi prob reveals he is barely alive and it is urgent. Maggie is of actual use and does an assessment by using his magnetism. It works to a point…his face moves, but he is otherwise paralyzed.

Logan is bing hounded by Sabertooth. They are face to face for the first time in the comics. They do have a past…but we turn to the future:

Sabertooth: “MR. SINSITER’s dealin’ a game that don’t allow for wild cards like the Morlocks—of you ❌-Chumps, either—”

And with that we have named our ARCH!

“—so he sent the MURAUDERS to resolve the situation. 'cause we’re the VERY best there is at what we do. Like you USED to be.”

Breakstone Lake: Callisto and Rogue track Ororo. Callisto is going solo. Rogue hands her the leather vest to be returned.

Callisto: “Vest’s her badge of office. I wore one like it. Ororo won leadership of the Morlocks away from me. Be real kick if tonight I took the ❌-Men away from here.”

Callisto has found Ororo who had taken a dress from a laundry line. She confronted her with aggression and physicality, as Ororo is wanting to let go of it all. She believes she has driven the X-Men to this, and wants to wash her hands of leadership. Callisto only sees one way past this…through her. As everyone is in truama, and there is no getting around that. Callisto will not abide abandonment, folks put trust in their leaders. Ororo has nothing less to give, obligations, a code…she is broke. Callisto is the repercussion of such folly.

Ororo: “Leave me alone.”

Callisto: “make me.”

Ororo: “My life is my own. I will live it as I please.”

Callisto: “Uh-uh! You lost the privilege—same as I did—the day you donned this vest!”

They fight above a water fall.

In the foregrounds of The Tunnels, lays Healer’s body. In the background two fellow mutants who have healing powers. Logan berries Sabertooth in rubbel. Takes Healer in his arms.

In the grass now, Callisto shocks them both by showing care. The fight turns to a returning of the vest and a path back to worth of it and of self for Ororo.

Rogue and Tom welcome back Logan, who carries Healer, just barely alive…and he clarifies…he picked up a sent of the New Mutants in the tunnels. When suddenly Rogue scoops them all up as the tunnel has some sort of energy surging through it…cleaning it of anything living. The Mutants assumed dead now.

Two characters on this cover make their final appearance in “to me my ❌-Men…”

“Guest-starring ❌-Factor…or what’s left of them!”

It will not be a member of ❌-Factor.

We return to the moment when Thor defended crucifi❌ WWIII from Blockbuster, Vertigo, and Harpoon. Seeing this play out to the point, that they run off. It is Thor who removes him from the wall. And carries him through the tunnels.

We see Balder on his steed, accompanied by the raven, ride in the desert. He is talking to himself. I care not. Whom ever he speaks to also, cares not.

An answer emerges from the sand, all the same. Silverhoof is startled by a Sand Devil. As is Muninn, the raven. The Sand Devil reveals herself to be Wyrd of the three Norns, who hands over a vile. Balder pours a drop on a raven feather, and Muninn’s brother Higinn lives. The San Devil woman gone, Balder returns.

Blockbuster and Harpoon sulk, amongst death. Sabertooth is not exactly helpful. Blockbuster sulks off, being cut by words.

Thor, WWIII on his shoulder, comes across Artie, who shares a vision of death. Thor offers his guidance. When Blockbuster comes in through the ceiling. Thor is taken down, so Angel, who seemed nearly dead, finds the strength to choke Blockbuster from behind. Blockbuster turns the tables, when Thor takes Mjolnir and smashes Blockbusters face with it. WWIII back out. So Thor caries him on, as Artie accompanies him. Thor impressed by the fallens efforts.

Another Thor comic, another large domesticated scene unfolds, as Volstagg returns to Kevin and Mick, this time with love, they become family. Welcomed to the table of Hildegund and Volstagg, the orphaned twins, now have Wyrd, Hildy, Alaric, Rolfe, Gudrun, and Folsi to call sibling.

Artie finds Scott and Jean, who are bit banged up themselves. And then they see Thor with WWIII. Eventually the mutants part ways with the deity.

Hela appears to rub in her pragmatism regarding death in Thor’s face…oh and to make him brittle, while also immortal. He can now never die, but easily brake for eternity, as his arm is in a sling already. To make it worse, she says she “casts him out.” No “respite in the arms of death.” No cuddles. Just eternal suffering, as he calls for her.

She disappears, and with this he slams Mjolnir, this being the energy that surged through the tunnel and wiped it clean, the last time we saw Rogue, Logan, Healer and Tom. The death erased. Thor thinks about his potential for envy of the dead, like Blockbuster.

As Thor exits “to me my ❌-Men,” the cover of this Daredevil floppy reads:

“THE MUTANT MASSACRE CONTINUES!”

Art Adams and Klaus Janson’s cover when you look closely begins to work, but not when you first come across it. Not in the way Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha’s Sabertooth strikes you. This might be the first moment Sabertooth is affecting.

The comic settles into a very 80’s average comic book. Which, when it is summer, and you are just soak in the camp vibes…this totally works.

Jake and Bob are being attacked…and they scram. Leaving a woman with red…nope now it is blonde hair…like on the cover…abandoned to be sleep next to Sabertooth…who needs a nap.

Matt is on the roof tops, witnessing a dog fight…and then stops a mugging. And the guy he saves gives him an ear full about how Daredevil bringing Nuke into the neighborhood ruined his business and life.

What was an average comic is livened up a bit here, as Fatboys; Butch and our hero Darla, as watching horror movies; Wolfman.

Darla: “No! Don’t hurt her! Where’s the HERO!!??”

Butch: “Heh heh.”

Darla: “Please, somebody save her!”

Butch is such an arse…but he is our arse…he tosses their cat at Darla as she freaking out about the movie…an excellent panel of the cat and her and the wolfman and women on the screen…in a dance of horror.

Darla does what she does best…beats the crap at of Butch as he laughs.

Adult figures tell them to go turn off the tv and play outside.

Butch tries to explain he is trying to become Daredevil…and life is tough on them streets…but he capitulates…to the library he claims.

So the meet up with their gang and its leader Ralph, who are in the tunnels…as Murauders and Thor whipped them clean of Morlocks.

Only they are not one of them quiet gangs and they wake up Sabertooth. But Butch is brave and basically like, ‘pick on someone your own size, like Daredevil.” And Sabertooth is like…actually that sounds like a good time.

So tracked him down, they fight, which nearly takes out Daniel and his wife, who are just walking them streets like they do.

We get a fun panel of the cat, after Sabertooth says he fights, ‘cause:

“It comes with the claws.”

And so a juxtaposition of fighting continues with the cat and mouse and Sabertooth and Daredevil. Just it had with Wolfman, the woman, the cat and Darla. Just like had been in the tunnels…no matter whom was in ‘em.

Butch is disgusted by the dead mouse. Matt fights Sabertooth all the way to saving the girl, with redish blonde hair. Just barely.

The sickness of the hunt, just because the hunted are there.

Our second to last X-Factor, the final one in a chapter in the story that marked a start in me collecting comics, begins with Scott being blasted from behind by Berzerker. We began with Scott blasting on a Walt cover, and we end with Scott being blasted on a Walt cover.

Hank and Bobby are in the tunnels, having rescued Leech and Caliban. Now all four are under attack from Morlock subset Tunnelers; Berserker, Scaleface, Blow-Hard and our old frienammy Masque. Masque was frightening, but has been reduced as such. Blow-Hard is the most unserious of Morlocks. The attraction here is Berserker and Scaleface. Unfortunately Scaleface is basically Tish with a monsters form that harkens what is to come…an aesthetic that does not work for me. Berserker, looked best on the cover. Bobby does his best to keep this interesting with some classic ice slides, but I am happy to keep turning the pages here.

We get another scene of Jean telekeneticly dragging someone, WWIII this time, through the tunnels, accompanied by a child, Artie, and failed adult, Scott. We get a recap along the way.

When…because all tunnels lead to conflict…they come across the battle, and immediately Scott’s Concussive Optic Balsts, liven up the scene.

Which has me feeling nostalgic for a time on Twitter, when it was “the good place,” when all us comics folks hung out there, until the fascist made it pointless. Back then, Gail Simone would josh Jay Edidin about super science of Scott’s blasts. Jay couldn’t let it go, so the fun banter would go on and on. The reality is Jay was correct, that Scott’s fictional blasts are not heat based. So they simply are force, not burning folks on the page.

Here Scott knocks down the Tunnelers…and then folks begin to talk it out. Masque and Leech of all duos work to convince Berserker that maybe it is safer to join in a journey through the tunnels with ❌-Factor. Cooler heads prevail and they walk together. When Caliban awakens and senses there are not mutants in the Alley. Then a noise is heard and they run for the complex secured door. It shuts in time to avoid the effects of Thors hammer, cleansing it. Berserker is enraged again to discover the truth of ❌-Factor. But Erg and Skids are there to deescalate again. But not convince. As Berserker convinces Tunnelers to leave the complex. They disguise themselves and pass cops, making way to the docks. Where they encounter some muggers…who messed with the wrong folks.

The next morning Tish is reporting on some folks who called 911 and then were found with the faces warped…Scott and Jean realize Masque did this, and head out.

We are treated to a scene of Apocalypse testing a machine on someone in Atlanta GA…and teleports it and him away…anyhoo…

A classic Jean and Scott sexy time approach the docks…and find the Tunnelers. And fight. A cop interferes and shoots Scaleface dead. Distraught, an accident happens as Berserker absorbers the energy from Scott’s optic blast and hits the water, which tares the energy from him, killing him. Jean is pissed, and they leave with Masque, up into the air, returning to the complex. Leaving more dead mutants behind them.

We are treated to a scene that introduces Boom boom hijinks. Where she quits a job working as part of an all girl gang of thieves…run by The Vanisher.

And then Jean and Scott find out from the Doc that WWIII wings will have to be amputated…

With all these loose ends…I take my e❌it. Such is life.

I hesitate to turn to this next book…as for three issues I am being pushed out of the story. This process would continue, until I finally walked away from the entire thing…until a generation later, Kelly Thompson convinced me to give it another chance. Thankfully, here we are still approaching my beginning of my real life journey. This back issue rediscovery what happened on the pages before it was changing my life course…it’s not a terribly effecting to see what I missed, as I was waffling.

Magus is absurd. Barry Windsor-Smith changes nothing. Inside things settle in Jackson Guice and Kyle Baker’s hands. The Mutants are recovering, hiding in Limbo. Lost to the ❌-Men. Berto argues with demons, and wonders…perhaps a good thing, as he has found Illyana on S’ym’s table, surround by more to them. It’s a service…one that brings Illyana back from certain death into a new costumed form of death in elegant red and white. Illyana returns her classmates back to Earth in time to face Magus.

From the unserious to the calm between storms. At the school we have Moira drinking coffee.

She looks at a photo of her and Rahne. As kitchen and table ware floats by…Maggie sets the scene. Brightwind is outside the window. Questions in perhaps the best past of this issue.

We return to what is clearly Scotland and the battle, which now has English Knight on horse back joining…against the Mutants…and then Robert the Bruce is there and takes them in. They have traveled through time…to escape Warlock’s Dad.

The delicate aesthetics at times a relief, The Mutants teleport again. We will perhaps hear to where in a future issue, but for now we move on from this story, as well. We bid the well, Mutants.

We complete this chapter of a Mutant Massacre, which has been eroding into a series of missed exits, exits, on-ramps…we seem to unsure on this road trip what path to take.

Perhaps we stay the course, as we have Logan and Sabertooth locked in battle and it is by Alan Davis hand that we see this. Should we survive this comic…

“Stan Lee presents: PSYLOCKE”

A close up of Betsy with Cerebro on her head, powers engaged, colorful lights about, by Alan Davis is effecting.

“I am a stranger here.”

She mind links with Rogue, patrolling The School of Gifted Youngsters Estate from the air; “extending three miles along Breakstone Lane and a mile inland to Graymalkin Lane.

Rogue is startled. With nothing to report, exhaustion, and cracked ribs, Bets suggests rest. Rogue rejects the nubes concerns.

Bets understood the implication…she needs to step up, herself.

We continue a recollection and assessment of current conditions; the triage continues; Kurt and Piotr are in hospital beds; Kitty, stuck in a state of phasing, in a tube, watched over by Lockheed. Betsy notes her condition without hope, does not present despair for the young POV ❌-Men.

“Half my age…yet her courage shames me.”

The Mutants, failed to heed their elders, and are gone…”surely dead.”

Betsy focuses in on Doug’s room. On how the room displays his care for this classmates. She reflects on how he interceeded and saved her from enslavement by Mojo. How he loves her.

“More deeply and truly then he knows. And how do I feel?”

A twist on Piotr and Kitty inappropriate relationship from the early 80’s, has evolved into a potentially problematic reality…a thought in Betsy’s head.

In the Morlock tunnels, forty miles south, Logan, Maggie, Ororo, and Callisto search…pointless, as Mjolnir sent a cleansing plasma through the entire network. Making all the cleaning Scott and Jean did after Glow Worm and Bulk, pointless.

Callisto: “Nothing left—no bodies, no clothes, no KEEPSAKES?! Our existence has been wiped…from the face of the stinking WORLD! Who did this, Storm?! WHAT DID THIS?!!”

Ororo: “l i g h t n i n g.”

Callisto: “What are you SAYING?!…when we fought…lightening…all over the place…like I’ve NEVER seen before!”

Ororo: “I-saw-I remember.”

Callisto: “Was it your doing…?!…Are you saying you’re responsible for this?!?”

Ororo: “I don’t know.”

As Maggie and Logan discuss the focus at hand, The Mutants…the students…disappeared. Logan argues the worst is what must have happened. Maggie, the optimist, rejects this thinking in his own mind…respectfully.

In this moment of communicating his sense of hope, he reveals to Ororo and Logan…he has been presented the opportunity to join the Hellfire Club as their new White King…Ororo is basically like, ‘you have to be kidding us.’

Again, Maggie points to his own history of conflict with the ❌-Men, and look at him now…its voice of hope. Callisto, chimes in with pragmatism…the Murauder’s are clearly to much…perhaps like the park (I’m saying this part), they should join forces with the elites murdering 1%…fellow mutants (and this part).

Callisto: “If I can stomach joining up with you, you can with Hellfire.”

Which I am astonished by…as how can Callisto feel this way…given the systemic class system that had her people living underground.

Betsy has been eves dropping the entire time, narrating:

“I have seen and heard enough…I manifest my psi-self (the butterfly eyes effect), making myself known.”

She suggests with Cerebro, she could expand the breadth and depth of her telepathic search for The Mutants and Murauders.

Maggie: “At considerable risk to yourself, young lady.”

Which raises the question…how old does he think she is!?!

Maggie is gracious in his full statement, as he rejects Betsy’s idea. Ororo, redirects her to her actual task…telepathically guard the School.

Betsy: “I can do both. I want to help, Storm!”

Ororo: “Then, Psylocke, do as I ask.”

They are alone, in a tunnel, absent of literally anything else…and Ororo the pros pro uses the code name.

Logan naturally suggests perhaps we should listen to the youth (I added in the last bit to ask...again…how old do these people think she is…).

Ororo: “She means well, Logan—but she is too unknown, untested a quantity.”

Only because we are American’s and have not read Captain Britain.

Ororo wants no more casualties on her “conscience.”

Narration continues by…

Betsy: “My language would make a royal marine blush. My thoughts are worse. All they see in me—all they acknowledge—is my SHELL! The sweet, innocent, genteel, princess Di (remember her?) facade. How do I show them…the TIGER within?!”

When she notices an intruder’s psyche…and attempts to investigate closer…

AIRRRGH!

Betsy in horror is rendered to the ground unconscious.

“Interlude:” LA; Ali could care less the festivity taking over the fetivist of places and days. Like Logan, a lone wolf. It’s been months like this. She passes a reflection, and what was dormant for a spell, has returned to taunt her lone wolf punk sense of self, with a warped creepy aging pop star past…Malice is within her and in this moment takes the reigns.

She finds attire and a scene to showcase her return as, “DAZZLER—”

Back at “the ❌-Mansion", no longer a school, Rogue is pacing, kicking at grass, wondering in her head, about how if only her Moms could see her now. When…

Rogue: “—whua?!!”

Sabertooth has her by the cut off green tank top:

“BANG, baby-DOLL!”

SLAMM!

…ing her into a large maple tree, cracking the 1,500 year old tree in half near its base.

THAK!

…across the jaw. Holding her up to the sky by the tank top, back lit by the moon:

“you DEAD!”

Groggy Betsy pulls herself together:

“stupid—BLOODY—-COW!”

A beasts mind, a Murauder…”must alert the ❌-Men”…she has Cerebro on…but a beastly shadow speaks behind her:

“If you’re callin’ for help, Sweetness—”

All of Kitty’s work destroyed by sharp claws…but Betsy telepathically reacts quickly, despite her arm also being slashed. She runs, as he is off his feet. He talks smack, threats…

Betsy: “Talk is cheap…prove it!”

She smiles at him and turns running determinedly.

Moria and Sharron observe from an observation booth’s security screen, above the makeshift triage center. What could they possibly do, more than Betsy is capable of doing. A reasonable assessment.

Betsy, with her enhanced mutant strength, tosses a barbel at Sabertooth, who simply folds it into scrap metal, tossing it back at her. It heading first, and her second out the second story window. Her agility on display, as she grabs the storm drain and with superhuman strength, pulls herself up to the roof. Only she is outclassed by Sabertooth is right with her in pace.

She falls through the skylight into Ororo’s room. Surrounded with plantlike and the nights window lighting she grabs for a knife hanging above the fireplace mantle, as Sabertooth approaches. Disarming her with a punch across the jaw, he has her by the neck and big hair.

The fire poker strikes him in the face, as Logan stands above them a few steps up from the sunken living area, and Ororo with firepower in hand attacks Sabertooth with superior skill. Embarrassing him, as he becomes entangled metal and plantlife. A twisted embarrassment.

The women take their leave. Logan:

SNIKT

Sabertooth: “No problem.”

Strikes first blood, as he flips over Logan, striking along the way. Licks is fingers of blood.

The scrap heads out to the roof top.

And over the edge towards the pool, as they grapple in mid air.

Sploosh!

Maggie joins Betsy and Ororo back in her room, and transforms the metal entanglement into cuffs that will hold legs and arms.

He reports Callisto has found Rogue, referring to her as a child as well. Betsy says she is fine, and thinks that further learning must be acquired of the Murauders…that this is the opportunity to do so. Sabertooth’s mind is formidable to penetrate, and distracted while fighting presents an opportunity. Once constrained that opportunity diminishes. This could prolong Logan’s entanglement, since Sabertooth will not have been captured yet. Maggie is concerned of the risk to Logan. But in the end, Betsy is tasked with entering Sabertooth’s mind, as they hold off from entering the fray.

It should be noted, that Alan Davis is absolutely killing it here. The missteps are few, the achievement is great…and here this page of Betsy engaging with her powers in a power stance along side four panels of the two beastial mutants engaged in epic battle are Davis flexing his ability to make organic form become intoxicating on the page.

“—they so do love what they do.”

-Claremont

Betsy can see the other Murauders and the shadow of their “Master.” As the fight is now in the woods, the cliffs, and then Betsy has probed to the answer she was seeking…and lets Logan know…he can end this.

Logan: “Hear that, sucker?! You been conned!”

Sabertooth responds, as he would, and jumps…Logan dives off the cliff after him. Just close enough to strike a last blow.

Rogue flys down into the water, and pulls her ❌-gang partner up from the depths. Cranky he was not left to find his arch.

Betsy no longer senses his presence. Dead or not…it is a question.

Later, Ororo is putting her room back together, with Logan and Callisto’s help.

Ororo: “If not for Psylocke, there’d have been another Massacre here. And it’s not over. The Marauder’s keep coming’—’til they get us.”

Logan: “Unless we nail them first.”

Logan suggests they move the wounded to Scotland for recovery and safety. Callisto agrees. Logan admits he owe Betsy and apology and an offer to join the ❌-Men. Looking curvaceously hot as Alan Davis is want to do, Betsy steps up, having heard it all, and accepts: “if there are no objections.”

Ororo: “Wolverine speaks for us all, Elizabeth.

It ends in embrace and smiles…for now.

Next: Uncanny X-Men Annual No. 10

Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”

Ben Cohen*
Jericho, VT
© 1975-2026

* The Ben Cohen originating from Jamestown, Boulder County, CO, USA; Raised in the Bay & Trained in Savannah.

Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”