Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”
Chapter Seven:
June, 1982, Daredevil Vol 1, No. 187 by Miller, Janson, Rosen + Denny
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June & August, 1982 Wolverine 1-4 by Miller, Rubinstein, G. Wein, L. Varley, Orzechowski, Claremont + Louise
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May, 1983 Uncanny X-Men 172 by Smith, Wiacek, G. Wein, Orzechowski Claremont + Louise & Fingeroth
Mixtape tracks: Stray Cat Strut by Stray Cats; Miami Gozen 5ji by Sieko Matsudo; Hit the Lights by Metallica; Pain and Pleasure by Judas Priest; & Work for Love by Ministry
Chapter 7 in “to me my ❌-Men,” where a direction of Logan’s most influential moments, are a series of broken bar windows.
Previously on “to me my ❌-Men,” a bookend iconic cover helps deliver an iconic fight scene, the brings us Ororo head of the Morlocks, and so much more.
Here we follow up with far more iconic covers and perhaps Marvel’s most iconic fight scene. I gush out some more context from our readers on how this is our most indelible onramp for them, and perhaps for Marvel, outside of Tony Stark on the silver screen in 2008. We begin with a zig, as we are ready to zag. In a predictable way by now, with The Hand in Matt’s not Logan’s…or should I say, Nat’s and not Elektra’s.
My on-ramp to Marvel is typical for someone exactly my age and from exactly my location at the time. PBS. As part of my entry into popular culture, we had The Beatles via my Dad’s record collection, we had a toddlers perspective of Star Wars from the day it was original released in the theater, we had Kermit the Frog, we had Captain Kangaroo, and we had The Electric Company. Thus, I knew of Spider-Man. I had one little additional wrinkle. Grizzly Adams. I think a smartly placed memory to fortify my roots to a cabin in the Rockies, built by my parents hand, with an outhouse and a pitcher pump. So Spidy, was formative, but not my introduction to comics; Tintin and Asterix in 1978; nor my introduction to MARVEL COMICS. As for the ❌-Men, that would be through late October, 1983’s episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. But relevant here, the “to me my ❌-Men," That would be this chapter’s central focus. And we have already become familiar with its architects'; Frank and Chris.
A little peak behind the curtain here, for this project. I had begun before this a browsing, and archiving project, for personal use as a cartoonists, and to contextualize as a comics historian, the entirety of Marvel comics publications from an aesthetic point of view. I have browsed through to most of the 80’s, nearly everything. Picking out what works for me, and having plans to return to it, as a way of understanding the technical and historical implications of this work. It may inform my cartooning, though this is a funny time to let that happen, as I think I have, half a century in, found my voice and process. It may end up being nothing, or be something I write about more. It has informed this project however. In how I see the pages here, and in how I understand the story. Though, I am attempting to keep most of that at bay. I do want this to mostly be about exploring it as it unfolds. I can’t help myself here and note. This first issue of this chapter, has roots in The Bay.
Yup, the old pre-Jessica Drew/Lindsay McCabe SF couple, Matt and Nat are back…in NYC. This time in Frank Miller’s hands…
The use of negative space to isolate trauma is effecting. Within the white, is red, Matt’s red, Daredevil’s red, THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR red. There is blotch of light grey shadow and a voice in pink: “ STOP IT! PLEASE…stop it…” The inked black lines of technical branding manual founts, the art, the lettering, starkly holds the page from falling into the vastness of white space.
Splash page of SFX noise in yellows, greens, blues, purples, all subtle by inks intent, newsprint publishing, and the shadows of the night, the black ink, come out at an angle expanding in our vision and into Matt’s mind. An agony we see as his muscles arch his body backwards towards a ball of sensorial and muscular pain. The red and black figure in the foreground is being bombarded.
Frank Miller: “Now suppose those senses went crazy. Then, you’d have a problem.”
STAN LEE PRESENTS OVERKILL
Miller, Janson, Rosen, O’Neil, Shooter
The billboard tucked above Hell’s Kitchen is strikingly hard boiled cinema.
Matt is struggling.
The background lighting switches to red. The foreground is shadow puppet play. With one exception. A Blackwidow on a back of one of our actors. Her branding subtly evident. The bluishgrey provides required clarity of space and Nat. The white is reserved for speech. The yellow for SFX. The pink, isolates:
City Morgue
Nat’s playmates. The Hand.
Throwing stars.
The windows lite, provides enlightened details of form and figure.
Swordplay.
Bodies join body’s they were extracting. Bodies resolve. Nat thinks she may have been poisoned as her name crackling calls out in the night.
A prequel of what is to come continues, at DUKES, where a body exits through a window. Matt looks for answers.
He who he seeks is at Josie’s. Stick is at Josie’s. Wrong bar.
So is the Hand.
Stick and his dumb hat, plays with The Hand, in the glow of a lamppost.
Matt struggles to cross a street. Exiting the ally was hard enough.
The struggle in traffic, provides opportunity for revenge from those who can see he is not well. And more than one person has a take on The Devil. Some care for him, others are pissed at him. It’s a scene.
Nat stepped on something during her shadow play, and it has given her aggressive cancer. Nick enters a room to give her the news.
But we are back at Jossie’s, where Matt and her cross paths. The Devil is giving her a headache.
And now, by entering her bar and escalating something, The Devil is exiting, like he had someone exit Dukes. The windows at bars in Miller’s life are never long for this world.
Stick sits with The Hand. Matt enters. He requires help, as he crumples to the floor.
A death and life ritual commences, cloaked in uncertainty.
We have set up the vibes. We know The Hand works in shadows of “to me my ❌-Men.”
Matt Groening’s
The Simpsons
We, who take the door.
As I keep mentioning (this is my diary, get your own), I’s 704 days old when I saw Star Wars. Relatively soon after this I was watching Spider-Man on PBS, reading Tintin in 1978, and part of a “Wolf Pack” a la Elf Quest by 1984. At the end of this year, I was in class, reading up some comics I got from who knows where. I was already going to be a cartoonist, but a four issue limited series would sharpen the focus and goal in a way which stunted my growth and encouraged spectacular failure. A comics tradition. Wolverine had this effect on aspired 80’s youth.
It’s hard to understate Logan’s financial impact on comics and film. As we are accustomed to speaking of Superman and Batman in this way nearly all my life, Marvel doesn’t actually have this kinda talking point most of the way. That is until the logical candidate of Spider-Man actually breaks through in the 21st Century. Sure he was an icon, but the money his competitors across the street had simply didn’t compare. Which makes the conversation about Wolverine harder to unpack.
You see, while the comics market had been a cultural force, by the time Spider-Man came around, the tide was beginning to turn against the medium in a way that set them on a course for niche isolation and the economics that come with that. Spider-Man was able to break through by being the face of the franchise and connecting on TV.
The Hulk and a few others had their moment there too. But how many of you knew Howard the Duck. Our film! We joke about Blade, but really we know a cult classic when we see one.
And the run here is the Wolverine was the driving force in comics of the 80’s and 90’s if there was a singular force. So much so, he would help burst the speculative bubble and bring Marvel and comics to their knees.
But in order to have that level of influence and destruction, (one nearly unnoticed by most folks at the end of the 20th c) one must begin with something work noting and worthy of repatriation.
So here we are at the last quarter of the 20th Centuries most influential four comic book issues, and a straggler. Hugh Jackman is because of this comic.
Heck, I could argue Tony Stark is because of this comic. But let’s read along and see what we find.
Vermonter, Frank Miller’s Wolverine and his come hither cover has worked we are in.
Stan Lee presents. I don’t know if you have noticed, but here we are 1982, and I think I have sited Stan Lee twice in the credits. There is a reason of this. Icon, “yes,” creator, “well…”
Chris Claremont writes, “I’m the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn’t very nice.”
I’m hooked. I’m nine.
My two best friends at the time are Shang-Fu and Steve. Shang-Fu’s brother is named Shang-Chi. Steve is the shortest kid in our class, Canadian. And I’m Jewish. So this Marvel comics world quickly becomes everything to us.
To be clear, Logan states the Canadian Rockies is his home. So let’s make this clear…he is a Western Canadian.
These first pages have never set right with me. I’m siding with the Bear.
The Bear is sacrificed to set up how horrific and honourable Logan is…oh and so we get he will Bar Fight for balancing the scales. The bear wouldn’t have been in this situation a mercy kill situation and multiple humans would alive if not for a man at the bar.
Miller, I guess Claremont, and certainly Marvel had already established the full heel turn on their relationships and depictions of Japanese culture and people’s. It had gone from racist to cultural appropriation, both on sickening scales. This is within the contexts of systemic problems. Miller offers nuances as cover, but also as genuine humanity. The lines are blurry. And that is before this comic. Have fun unpacking.
The rendering of Mariko’s photo, the close shot of Logan’s mug, the detail of photos, and the exterior of a plane headed West is where you first understand, we are leveling up our superhero comics today.
Let’s be clear, we have seen some pages that are at, or even surpass this page, but also…damn this is fine art.
That’s before I get swept up in the architectural renderings and more facial renderings. The layouts are clearly intentional, using narrative space and graphic design on a level that is of the time and all times.
If you are reading along we already know Mariko, but we are seeing context and the complications she is trying to navigate. We know enough now to understand…Logan is not going to simply let this be. Further complications.
I have lost patience for Claremont’s writing. It often perfect and exacting artistry, which can work within page. I was absolutely taken in and held by his words, but now, being a comics professional, a full tilt cartoonist, this is far too much waste for my taste.
My brain is jumping to the conclusion this is in short fucking up the pace. However, I know this work well enough to tell myself, nah, this is some great Claremont here…chill.
In the first six pages Claremont and Miller establish a Logan who has a code, balance, and extremes. A man from the wilderness, a man who lives that out west mindset, a man who can give a deposition.
They spend the next four setting up Logan’s back story of international espionage wet work, his unique, for a Honky, connection with Japan, and his relentless commitment to love.
We also established Mariko’s past has come, without any concern for love, to force its will on her. Her vanished father has returned to head their Clan and establish a new lifemate partnership for her.
So Logan ventures from an indelible Tokyo skyline to a classic Japanese architectural marvel. Yashida Clan’s doorstep. This despite Logan’s old friend and colleague, Asano Kimura’s logic based and cultural normative attempt to sell, “Let it Go” 🎶 to a Wolverine.
This is a lot of narrative to traverse in 10 pages. Especially when looking back through 43 years of Marvel comics, and knowing the primary methods either embraced less is more (and it is) or let’s over tell these panels…spelling out what we can already see, which has become funny at times and absolutely impossible to consume with any serious consideration to “read” the comic. Claremont & Miller are efficient here and it so nice to look at the last four pages…it’s worth spending the time here. A slower pace.
Also established over those 43 years is the point that Marvel is as much Romance comics as any other genre. The architects of Marvel are some of the same folks who are the architects of Romance comics. In fact, some of my absolute favorite Romance comics are Marvel comics. There is a reason that Patsy Walker and Nellie the Nurse or amongst my favourites. There is a reason why Millie is Marvel a top seller too. I’m going with, “because they are good comics for 200, Alex.”
And this Wolverine comic is like most Marvel and certainly most ❌-Men comics, a Romance comic.
It’s likely I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I at least understood visual cues of misogyny in these comics to date. It seemed to me that blatant depiction of abuse in relationships were treated as something to be ignored, or within the confines of a fight cloud if direct. I have no idea what was happening within the Marvel offices in 1981-1982, between the clear as day Hank Pym abuse of Janet Van Dyne and these next pages of Wolverine, it is becoming clear that Marvel is spilling tea and the comics industry and the cultures it resides in will spend the rest of our time reexamining more that 43 years of comics. A real struggle within the creative community and on the page will be reshaping the medium and market. There was and there is real life horrors disguised as romance playing out in direct and indirect connections to this. Miller and Claremont are in this world with all the rest. Finding ways to use art. And I can’t speak to what else.
The presence of Louise, Ann, Jo and Lynn in these projects and the X/Daredevil offices is really REALLY IMPORTANT. It built on work Marie and the wives club coloring team (THEY WERE ALL MORE THAN THIS, and all colorists are far more than the limited credit they are given), some core voices that were able to check and balance the scales a bit in real ways during the 80’s. That is until the boys burst in.
Logan is like we are, stunned by the illustration of what Mariko is experiencing. Logan asks in Japanese, “who did this.”
Mariko speaks plainly and cuttingly, “It is none of your concern.” We have concerns.
We can see her face. He can calm his frustrations with a touch of the hand, but his and ours are about to be unleashed. As we devour this comic.
The husband abuser is a slub. So The Hand sends throwing stars into the room as a warning shot to Logan.
In the 80’s we were fed Ninja culture. The Ninja Star was especially alluring to me. We would spend our mornings in the back of the Berkeley Unified School District School Buses, flipping through, the industrious of uses, copies of “ninja catalogues.” Making plans to acquire by mail Ninja gear. To what end, “love?!,” I can’t recollect. To colonise?! To follow the tradition, “dumb kids!” So this Wolverine comic was kinda the ultimate capitalistic tool of the day. I mean the cover of issue 4 and page 6 of that issue was probably the “hottest” thing my 9-year-old self had ever seen.
Superhero comics in general and Marvel specifically have a tricky history with villainy. I will continue to restate (along with a good many things, it seems…sigh) what I say daily to my 4-year-old students, “there is no bad guys, ONLY BAD CHOICES!”
An oversimplification…one I don’t entirely buy myself. But I do reject the binary good v evil. Marvel has done a nice job to date to tests this. They spend to much time turning villains into clowns with labels, and humanising others with labels. Then putting them against each other is farces build as world shattering conflict.
Some of this absolute delicious fun.
I am pretty certain it is a fact that in this season of Thanks we all take a moment to thank 1981’s Marvel…
Winslow Mortimer, Richardo Villamonte, Mike Esposito, George Roussos, Ray Holloway, Steven Grant and Caroline Barnes for Spidy Super Stories Vol 1 No. 53
…and “THE COMICS PANEL:”
Are we not here to consume delicious fun?!
And certainly we have had some actual, serious villainy (a distinction from lazily labelling someone a villain) in the 43 years leading up to 1982…but mostly hasn’t been a silly time.
Miller is a principle architect in trying to establish superhero comics as serious an artist and literary fusion. Which is kinda funny, in how it all plays out. But I digress.
Because right here, on page 15 of Wolverine Vol 1, No. 1 in chapter 11 (haha…sorry being serious) Logan is awakening to Mariko’s father Shingen, who’s villainy doesn’t fuck around. We have our heel. This comic is for real.
As established in Daredevil already, like Jack Kirby’s six square panel two person fighting pages, Frank Miller has formatted a five longshot panels two person fighting page layout. Wally Wood has his panels that work, Kirby and Miller have their layouts that work. So this Logan v Shingen round one is working it.
And then Miller, who has already in this telling, flips the action from horizontal to vertical on an apposing page in a two page spread, sending Shingen upper left with a defeated Logan at the bottom left. Five sequence panels cascade down to the inevitable lights out Logan. Leaving us visage of an isolated and worked over Mariko to remind us where the focus is, before we turn the page.
Issue one ends with two pages depicting the lights of late night Tokyo, a dark corner, a dumped Logan, and the introduction of a throwing knife welding guardian, who TIMELY takes out the trash. She is sexy AF getting in Logan’s grill. Establishing who’s the top.
Logan is once again is awaken rudely in the next issue, this time by the hand of his saviour dom, as they are surrounded by The Hand.
The Hand are the most foundational and central foil in Marvel, as I read it. I am spelling out how and why here.
Introduced in May, 1981’s Daredevil 174 by Miller (as we saw), this is their 5th appearance in Marvel comics, and thusly, not our first appearance in “to me my ❌-Men.”
If you have been watching Daredevil on Netflix and Disney+ than you have a reasonably clear understanding. If you have been paying attention to Logan and Wade through film, you have a less desirable impression.
If you have been reading, well you know.
As established we have taken Ninja into our childhood and made it our own. Oops. If you love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1984), then you can thank Frank Miller and Chris Claremont. For The Morlocks, The ❌-Men, The Hand…that’s basic elements of TNMT DNA. Which is why, I was pretty dismissive of TMNT from jump, and only now have some nostalgia for early issues I flipped through in Mr. Richie’s art class, and celebrate Sophie Campbell’s career triumph of being a super fan turned TMNT creator.
But here we are page one issue two, dazed, confused, surrounded by katanas drawn.
“I treat ‘em accordingly.
Trouble is they don’t come alone.”
-Claremont
Page 3 & 4 a double page spread that absolutely has spent years the background on my work computer.
Our Yukio, introduces herself as they exit the window, descending to roof tops, down building sides and to the ground littering Ninja’s along the way through page 8. Where Logan establishes in the words of Claremont, “I’m the best.” But it also establishes along the way, we are not Yukio of Fox films…either version. We are a mature and capable alluring figure who will cut a mother.
Yukio’s “gotcha,” has us, as the issue unfolds a rhythm of banter and flirtation over the subject of mutant super healing and its utility as folks with a warriors code. A dynamic between Yukio and Logan have which makes for temptation and desires lust, leading from Miller’s Tokyo city living to regular braking into Yushida stronghold, Miller longshot panel fighting sequences, and ultimately Mariko seeing the side of Logan, I guess he has been working to keep from her. The brutality.
While in comics since 1982, it has become common enough to have a cover which is quiet, introspective, dark, sullen, mature, the cover of Wolverine Vol 1 No. 3 stands out to this day. In my mind, if you begin with this as how you see Logan, you are seeing the character from a perspective of clarity
At the risk of us actually forming a problem and being a bit on the nose, we will be adding to your list of “take a drink” moments; ❌-Men drink coffee, Storm is naked. The ❌-Men think Charles is dead, and stranger yet ❌-Men think The ❌-Men are dead. For we have another Wolverine is in a bar fight to open No. 3. Take a drink. So far we have Canada and Japan covered. We are working our way from another bookended situation (see crucifi❌ed ❌-Men covers) to my personal favorite the Australian Logan bar fight in Meltdown near the end of this telling of the ❌-Men.
Here we have a sumo cliché braking through another window.
Yukio and Logan ona bender.
Asano is the DD.
Yukio and Logan do them, and walk right into a trap. The Hand have bows drawn and higher ground.
Yukio leaves Logan’s body amongst thier kills.
Back at our favorite Tokyo apartment viewing room, Yukio is in her own head. Interrupted by Asano, gun drawn, she assassinates him. Logan discovers the body and a sent. She is still there. A shadow brakes through another window, with a Wolverine on her trail. Through the city night lights. Into a trap. The Hand has him. Lust and honor special delivery.
A place where Logan does his best work.
“That mistake is going to cost you.
To be continued.”
-Claremont
I am pretty sure the Logan lighting up a sig, with a crossbow in hand was my favorite image at age 9. I am still thrilled by it at 50.
I am a sucker for single worded on the nose thematic titles: Honor
“I’m WOLVERINE.”
-Claremont
Bolding the wolverine.
I would love to write a book about bolding lettering choices in comics.
Anyhoo, there is a money hand off, interrupted by adamemtium claws. I wish I could say I was reading and analyzing every word…I really can’t be bothered. So I kinda don’t understand why we need a drug exchange here. I guess we are War on Drugs establishing “bad guys” here, as we have pointed out in Daredevil previously. This brings the villain and drug lazy writing together. Grrrreeeeat. Sigh. A blemish.
That wast of pages, followed by a nearly perfectly visually detailed and simplified reception of a package by Shingen. A note. “Tonight.”
“I must face him.”
Followed by the previously mentioned ninja weapons arsenal Logan preps page. Which I lust after.
Juxtaposed with anguish and unsettling isolated Mariko page.
Speaking of lust. Over four pages, we get Yukio, entering Yushida stronghold and facing Shingen. Having second thoughts and grown a spine, she is simply nothing to Shingen. This heightens the seductive ploy Claremont & Miller have put on us. The last act is set to ensnare Logan.
Trails of Hand bodies lead us through the space to the demise of the husband and the firm establishment of the real love triangle in this title; Mariko, Yukio & Logan.
Shingen inserts himself, as a patient Logan awaits. Four pages, Miller style. The most iconic fight scene in Marvel history.
SNIKT: a lesson in comics SFX
An ocean of baggage between Logan & Mariko, not enough to keep them from this embrace.
The one page epilogue brings us right to Uncanny ❌-Men 172, as the page and the cover share identical imagery elements.
A bit of house cleaning: This establishes a little awkwardness for our purposes. As Wolverine was published in 1982 and in our “to me my ❌-Men” reading we only have two 1983 issues left. 172 and 176.
So to clean up the alignment and as part of “the plan,” I will be wrapping up chapter 11 with 1983’s No. 172. Then going through the 1982’s Ben’s Pulllist Aesthetic Sharing. Followed by 1983’s No. 176 and then 1983’s Ben’s Pullist Aesthetic Sharing.
Which should be the pattern…read ❌-Men story and comment for the year, then supplement for context with the rest of the years aesthetic pulls.
Back to our epilogue…which I am reading this way for the first time in my life.
May 1983’s Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 No. 172; 60¢, Logan and Mariko’s invite to their wedding, with a Japanese knife stabbed into it and a hand written note, “Hey Elf - don’t forget the beer!” - W
Tokyo
Balanced page layout on the first double page view. Mariko centered on left and Rogue on right. Should we be reading into this?
Especially fond of Lookheed’s presence.
Oh, Logan is all in his head, as his wedding celebration is beginning, he is thinking about Carol Danvers and how Rogue is here, and how he can never forgive her for what she did to Carol…while making space in his life for her. Mariko and Ororo are working to get Logan to treat Rogue with welcoming grace. In the 21st Century this remains a complex thing to unpack. A central part of Kelly’s run on Captain Marvel, as she worked with her fav character Rogue and the title character in her run…as an example.
I really try and avoid Silver Samurai. To on the nose representationally for my taste. But our Yukio scenes should not be wasted. So here we are, ‘fight!’ Logan, Elf and our wind rider are in the fray.
Smith’s layouts are fine, but the rendering is a hard shift from Miller.
Page 8 establishes the Ororo & Yukio connection. While extremely small, my personal favorite relationship for both characters is this one.
This is the actual reason I am including this issue.
Some interpersonal dynamics are explored (which sometimes slows things and is to explicit for my taste…show don’t tell, please)…and ulp…speaking showing in four perfectly paced panels Mariko is knocked out by Viper AKA Ophelia Sarkissian. Madam Hydra from 1968, is a Captain America character (Lee/Stiranko) who will be the most important figure in Madeipoor, another Logan ex, and she took over for Baron Strucker.
Mariko is not the shrinking violet or punching bag she seems to be in chapter 11.
Yukio is not Mariko’s friend. Viper is poising the well here.
Back in Alaska…the Summer brothers are living their best life. Dulldrum, not superheroing. It’s nice to see. Only, Jean and Maddy and their aligned timings and looks are the focus. So, eh, it’s no space whales (you will see).
The super science gets to be a bit much as the Phoenix force emerges from a Silver Samurai, Viper, Storm and Yukio battle that has Yukio somehow saving an electrified Ororo…I am choosing to move along.
Logan and Rogue have their awkward talk…he is reluctantly taking her under his wing. Kitty and Rogue, this Lone Wolf and Cub bit is going to be something else.
Next: New Mutants
