Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”

Chapter Five:

March, 1982 Daredevil No. 184 by Miller, Janson, Rosen, + O’Neil Mixtape track: No One Like You by Scorpions

Previously on “to me my ❌-Men” no X-Men.

Why am I starting off this way? Well a few reasons. For one my onramp was in bits and pieces. This was during a time where the comic shops had been around for a two decades, but that first decade they were novelties themselves. I just happen to be growing up in a place where one of the originals popped up. We also had local cartoonists. Still nostalgic for us as we were getting comics from spinner racks and news stands mostly. I suppose you could get a pull list, you could order direct in the mail, but there was no TPB and no internet, no digital media. You could order back issues from Mile High. You could find them on your own in quarter bins, old book stores, but this randomness of initial access to back issues and frankly that weeks issue was a a lot to navigate if you are shy of 10 years old. In fact I am not getting serious about regularly picking up comics till I am about to turn 11.

So to me the randomness of single issues here and there is how to consume comics “the right way.” As a kid I loved “Choose Your Own Adventure,” and this was that.

Another reason is the Art. I would select based off art. The concept of choosing based on writer wasn’t even brought up to me until High School, and only in college did I give it real consideration. To this day, if the art is not working, the writing doesn’t work. Comics are one thing. All the parts work well enough or they don’t work at all for me.

So even when I am actively collecting or consuming a comic, I have zero issue with skipping one that aesthetically fails my high bar.

The final reason came along with becoming a cartoonist and a comics history educator. This is specific to Marvel, though it kinda applies across the Superhero market, certainly to a degree at DC. The Marvel Method and the writer/penciler dynamics with serialized narrative comics are by design and through the process easily edited by the audience. The basis of this exercise and my fundamental perspective as consumer and creator of comics (and all art) is that the creators and the audience have equity in the storytelling.

When the penciler is in control of the initial narrative work, this makes it so the writer is acting like the audience and imputing their take on the page, like the audience in the gutter.

When the writer and penciler (and editor) are working in a more deliberate and structured partnership the work feels more refined or at least has more of a professionalism in it.

Both methods are appropriate and appreciated.

When the cartoonist has complete control things can get really out there or dry…depending on the creator. The variables all can work.

When a creative team has a solid thing going and a guest artist comes in, this can elevate a work, it can offer diversity and verity that is wonderful. Balancing a series or narrative. Connecting broadly with a wider understanding of the universe.

It can also feel like turbulence and really blow up your spot. But since we are use to missing issues, we can easily be selective like a great editor and make it work for us. As I am attempting to do here.

I began the story with a specific intent. I was a kid who was doing chrismukkah before it had a name. I have always thought Halloween through New Years as one thing and I love it. I am not a “horror fan,” but I raised one and I have a nostalgia for that 80’s horror scene through my part in the 80’s metal and punk scene. Kitty’s power set is one of my all time favorites, and while my feelings of the characters have soured, I definitely see her as my POV character at the time.

143 has long been my oldest X-Men issue. I got it for 25¢ in the 80’s.

I am a believer in what Marvel and American comics did in the mid-20th century. And a huge part of that is just being weird and zany. So 148 & 149 selectively make for a tether to that time and place. The what came before 143.

I fundamentally believe in balance across my life. I also had a very specific part of my onramp that got me here. Frank Miller. So making that link right off that balances with connective tissues to Wolverine without it being explicit is essential to what I am doing here. It really works for me. To have X-Men include The Hand, and make space right off for Matt, Elektra, and Frank here…as they are three of the four legs that got me here, Logan being the other.

Daredevil 184 establishes for us in isolation the presence of Punisher. I can see an alternate exercise that is about She-Hulk and pulls in a broader, but still selective Marvel Universe…but that’s the other side of my Marvel fandom…Jen is my favorite character, but my favorite team is the X-Men. This issue continues the complexity of ethics for Matt, Elektra, Logan and brings in Frank. The X-Men are a lot of things and one grounding force is a discussion about the ethics of superheroing.

This issue also brings in drug war propaganda which along with nuclear holocaust and eventually the AIDS epidemic were fundamental in our experience as existential crises and real crises as kids. So the kinda bizarre time capsule aspects of that narrative here really works to set the vibes.

It feels disjointed to some, but it is building towards something. An ending.

Next: The Uncanny X-Men No. 160