Notes on the cruellest month

Not only the title, but the underlying ideas and structure were inspired by The Waste Land by TS Eliot. The quotes were heavyhanded at times, forced at others... usually, the poem was meant to sit underneath the project or in the back of my head as I wrote. I honestly can’t remember what spurred the connection. Sometime in March, I was thinking about Uncanny X-Men #394 and the poem and something clicked and I went for it. The entire month-long project was not meant to be a replication of Another View despite being in the same mould. It was a bit more serialised, a bit more freeform. The eventual shift into other issues from the run was unexpected/unplanned and, really, if I were to actually adhere to the structure of The Waste Land, it would have been five issues. I realised too late that doing a fifth issue, either issue 400 or the annual, would have rounded things out a little more and not left, from my perspective, a bit of a gap.

Despite my education in English literature (four years of undergrad, two of grad school), I’ve never been a big poetry person. I’m too literally minded. I struggle to think in metaphor at times. I don’t always have the patience. And, yet, I’m very quite fond of TS Eliot. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is my favourite poem and the first one that I encountered, which is probably a little unsurprising. Upon doing that poem in a first year class, I went out to the campus bookstore and bought a nice little Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets edition dedicated to him. “Prufrock” remains my favourite, though I’d concede there’s more to The Waste Land, obviously. Some of the connections I found as I went...

1. While I loved the title, I loved the little graphic that I made with some pencils by Ian Churchill from Uncanny X-Men #394 and a snippet from The Waste Land from a picture of one of the early printed editions. I never did go back to find where that “listen until you figure the song out” theory came from. This was a purposefully unusual (for me) to start the project.

2. The theory that Joe Casey’s work is about what comes “after” has been a personal contention for years.

3. I never saw it through, but it was here that I considered really focusing in on the influence of Casey’s Uncanny run on Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, and the way that Casey seemed to set up a number of story/plot/character beats for Morrison. That could be a coincidence, Morrison being quite good at taking existing ideas and integrating them (like X-Corps), or even Casey aware of Morrison’s plans and foreshadowing some of them. In the end, I chose to shy away from an in-depth comparison, preferring allusions and snarky insinuations that Morrison ripped off Casey, because that amused me.

4. Karl Jirgens.

5. Aside from attacking Cape Citadel, I was struck by how little similarities between Uncanny X-Men #394 and The X-Men #1 actually were present. Given the time period, unless Casey had a copy of the first X-Men Marvel Masterworks, there was a very good chance he had no actual reference material to that comic. He had the equivalent of what Warp Savant has: a new report/summary of events taken from a distant point. Casey seems to use the very broad framework of the idea of Magneto attacking the base and goes from there.

6. Most of the quotes from Casey or anecdotes about the making of the run were taken from his newsletter. In the lead-up to Weapon X-Men, he did a multi-part breakdown of his run, going issue by issue (or by chunks) to give some context and insight – and backwards perspective. He’s pretty honest about the run’s failings and I’d say a bit too hard on himself. Despite the good humour he writes the ‘recolleXions’ with, you can tell that this run is still a sore spot, both creatively and professionally. It was a pretty spectacular failure on both fronts. An interesting failure, I’ve long contended and full of more depth than people give it credit. After a while, I gave probably a bit too much attention to advocating for it, I suppose.

7. Casey mentioned the ‘penis arm’ on Wolverine on the cover and I’m not sure if I’ve ever quite seen it. I think I have?

8. Logan is kind of a shitty dude in this issue.

9. The inclusion of Warren in the first issue was a bit fortuitous and possibly an indication of some ideas bubbling under the surface for Casey. I think I found some compelling reasons for his inclusion – his past crush on Jean was one of those ideas that I thought of as I was writing the piece.

10. It’s definitely possible that Unreal City was the connecting point between the comic and the poem. Unfortunately, the label on the fence is City Hell. I wish my note for 5 was something I thought of to include here. Alas...

11. Was Warp Savant Bugs Bunny or more like Daffy Duck? I mentioned Bugs because of the kiss, but Daffy was always the more antagonistic of the two. If you had to pick a ‘villain,’ that you root for in Looney Tunes, it’s Daffy Duck. Later, when I made this reference again, I made sure to include Daffy as a result.

12. Whenever I’ve done a project like this, there inevitably comes the piece where I think I’ve completely wasted the day. By the end, there are several. This was the first one. It’s not only that my mindset is so far removed from these hypothetical new readers, it’s that I don’t respect the concept. I can’t even pretend. I set myself up for failure – and wound up making a point that I thought was much needed about the issue. There have been too many movies at this point for anyone to care, but the idea of making comics to appeal to ‘regular’ folks who saw the movies was such a prevalent idea at one point and it always frustrated/infuriated/disgusted me. I grew up with comics in my house and was a newsstand kid who’d pick up whatever looked interesting. I always followed along just fine. These ideas are, at their core, insulting. They assume that non-comics readers are too stupid to understand most comics and that most comics are too impenetrable for non-comics readers. It’s basically a “comics suck, but people are too stupid to get them anyway” mentality that I never understood. You literally didn’t need to have read any past X-Men comic to understand Uncanny X-Men #394. Liking it was a whole other idea...

13. “starless inscrutable hour” is from “Whoroscope” by Samuel Beckett. On the bookshelf next to my bed, right near my pillow, I have the four volume Grove Centenary Edition of the complete Beckett, edited by Paul Auster. While waiting for my wife to get ready for bed, I often pick up volumes and I had picked up the fourth volume some time before this piece, which contains the poems, short fiction, and criticism. “Whoroscope” is a poem clearly influenced by The Waste Land and seemed like a suitable place to take the title as I jumped to a new issue. I had the idea for a few days before doing so and I think the twelfth edition pushed me over the edge to do it. It meant finding a suitable line to use for the title, a suitable image, and to do another graphic. I don’t recall if I knew right then that I would do more than this. I don’t believe so. I remember wanting to discuss Chamber since he was, initially, a big part of Casey’s conception of what his X-Men run would be about... and, then, he wasn’t...

14. I always thought Chamber was from Australia for some reason. He’s actually British.

15. I tried to address issue titles, but found them oddly worthless (aside from “Rocktopia Part 8 of 5” of course). I worked in the title to issue 395 in this piece rather hamfisted. I did like the idea of mutants as God’s nepobabies as the real reason why they’re so hated.

16. 

17. I don’t like the title “Playing God.” I don’t think it suits the issue at all. I tried to make it work. What I never found a place for and did want to discuss at some point was the title page of the issue. I really hate that page. The text choices and layout are both terrible. The visuals are fine with the blood cells making a double helix and the little circle headshots. But, the title over the X-Men logo followed by the combining the name/bio of each character with a creative credit was clunky and confusing. Easily the worst part of the comic.

18. The Waste Land lines 128-130.

19. “Whoroscope” lines 66-67.

20. Part IV of “The Waste Land: FiveLimericks” by Wendy Cope. I was oddly proud of the idea of discussing the influence of Chris Claremont on these issues by rewriting parts of the poems that I took the titles from. At whatever point I decided to do more than the two issues, I went looking for further Waste Land-influenced poems and came across Cope’s Limericks, where she does five limericks, summarising each part of The Waste Land. Hilarious and clever, I love them. “In April one seldom feels cheerful;” is how she begins the first Limerick, so it seemed like a natural choice to play off “April is the cruellest month.” The text over the eyes was harder to find here and was taken from some project where people wrote out poems by hand. Sizing was an issue, but I figured, by this point, clarity wasn’t essential.

21. Settling old business.

22. I was initially unimpressed with Warren’s speech and this piece was me talking myself into thinking it was actually really clever and well done.

23. Why Adventures of Superman #612 and the rest of Casey’s final year on the book matters so much.

24. I shied away from Jean’s privilege and the ways that she may or may not encourage Logan’s feelings towards her. I had a paragraph half-written that touched on the Susan Richards/Namor thing, too, another trope that I’ve always hated. I took it out because it didn’t feel right, particularly in what happens this issue – and how the issues between her and Scott actually play out in New X-Men.

25. I was never prouder than discovering the line “April is the coolest month” in “The Waste Land” by John Beer. His poem is part parody, part sequel, part its own thing. It’s much larger and funnier than Eliot’s poem. I couldn’t find a great image for the text, so I highlighted it and used that, giving the fourth graphic a bit of a pop. I really do love the title “Rocktopia Part 8 of 5,” but discovered something odd: when Casey wrote about the issue in his newsletter, he referred to it as “Rocktopia Part 5 of 8,” and had a picture from the comic showing that. I had to doublecheck the issue for myself and mine shows 8 of 5. I think that I gave a pretty good explanation for the numbering, too. 8 of 5 is far superior. I guess it was meant to be 5 of 8 and was corrected after the fact or someone changed it thinking the numbering was a mistake, and Casey doesn’t remember the original.

26. Jack Kirby and Sean Phillips, fuck yeah.

27. I fully intended to push the idea of Nightcrawler as the mutant missionary in Casey’s run and the way it prefigured his role in Krakoa and it never felt right.

28a. The Waste Land lines 27-30.

28b. The Waste Land lines 108-110.

28c. The Waste Land lines 301-302.

28d. The Waste Land lines 385-390.

The idea of doing a single post jumping between the four came earlier and it seemed like a logistical nightmare to pull off well if kept in a single post. Doing four posts, all with the same number, based around a singular theme was much better. I wrote these somewhat as a single piece, albeit more like parts of a single piece. As always, I ignore the art and that seemed like a logical place to bring the four issues/titles together, particularly under the argument of how the art impacted the idea and execution of Casey’s run. Ian Churchill is so associated with the run, but he didn’t do three full issues. Ron Garney only did two. Sean Phillips did the most and, yet, he’s not really thought of as the artist of this run for obvious reasons.

29. I used the term ‘comicbooks’ throughout the project, because that’s Casey’s preferred way to write it. The idea that this run was actually part of a larger tapestry/tradition came late, well after the idea that it was the precursor to Krakoa in many ways. I almost leaned into that idea hard, but eased off for whatever reason. I referred in passing at some point to misquoted lyrics because Warp Savant quotes from the song “Black Diamond” by Kiss (off their eponymous debut) but gets words wrong. He sings “Darkness will fall on the city... seems to fall on you, too,” but the lyrics is “seems to follow you, too.” I debated writing about that for an edition at one point. It seemed a little unseemly to focus on Casey shoving in a line from another piece of art somewhat randomly and incorrectly...

I don’t know if this piece – or the project as a whole – works. It did what it need to for me. But line 252 from The Waste Land does sum it up nicely.

the coolest month 28

In this decayed hole among the mountains

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing

Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel

There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.

It has no windows, and the door swings,

Dry bones can harm no one.

What can one say about Sean Phillips? He has been one of the premier artists working in mainstream comicbooks for the past two-and-a-half decades (and his work was damn good before that, but it was really Wildcats that seemed to push him more and more into the spotlight). For a time, it seemed like his main creative partner might turn out to be Joe Casey; instead, it was Ed Brubaker thanks to Sleeper, their Wildstorm book that wasn’t their first collaboration but was basically what made them partners ever since. I’m less interested in what Phillips brought to Uncanny X-Men #409 as I am in was if his presence was what finally made the book work.

His presence on Uncanny X-Men was first felt in issue 396, drawing anywhere from one to three (four?) pages, mostly in a manner to try and fit in with Ian Churchill’s art. Then, he was part of the issue 400 jam, came in with issue 404 and wound up doing five full issues all told. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the title comes together once Casey is working with an artist he knows well and has worked with a lot, but it was also well into the run where he began to finally settle on a direction and obtain a comfort level with the characters. It’s hard to say how much was experience and how much was Phillips.

What I’m trying to imagine are the other issues I’ve discussed as drawn by Phillips. What would his Warp Savant been like? Something akin to the world we saw Voodoo or Cole Cash wandering through? There’s such a grounded realism in Phillips’s work that it’s hard to imagine him nailing the dreamscape of Warp Savant’s subconscious... but I’ve also seen Phillips do wild stuff like that. Those initial issues would have definitely had less of a glossy sheen, which works a little against Casey’s ‘pop eats itself’ ideas where the one area that really leaned into Churchill was the flashy nature of Sugar Kane.

The idea that Phillips would have executed naturally was the idea of the X-Men going out into the ‘real world’ beyond the Mansion. Wildcats and Hellblazer before and Sleeper and Criminal after demonstrate Phillips’s adeptness and comfort in drawing books grounded in the less fantastic, more realistic world. When he wasn’t trying to fit in with Churchill, he would have given a seedy, sad freakishness to the underground mutants. And his Mister Clean could have hit the right balance between action star and scummy shit. There’s no doubt that a run completely (or mostly) drawn by Sean Phillips would have been more cohesive and artistically satisfying as a whole, from the beginning...

But, would it have been better? Would Casey have been more focused and gotten a clearer direction to head in sooner? Was the inconsistent art the problem? Was it ill-matched artists? Does anyone consider Uncanny X-Men Annual 2001 a resounding success despite Casey and Wood being in pretty good sync as they rushed, eventually, towards Automatic Kafka? As tempting as it is to say that a Joe Casey/Sean Phillips Uncanny X-Men run would have worked, I’m really not convinced that a more simpatico artist alone would have saved the stalled enthusiasm of those early issues. Maybe it would have dampened expectations to a more manageable level given Churchill’s higher profile over Phillips... but, Wildcats was a bit of cult success and that maybe have raised expectations in a different way.

I wonder...

the coolest month 27

Warren Worthington III buying himself a drug empire is something to naturally focus upon with its novel method of defeating a supervillain mutant. The focus of Uncanny X-Men #409 is not so singular, dividing its time between the acts of businessmen and the effects of their wares, advancing a subplot that Casey would never get a chance to see through... What exactly is going on with Nightcrawler?

Largely absent from the Warren/Vanisher plot, Nightcrawler is alluded to be of a differing opinion on how to proceed from Warren. By stepping back, Kurt is basically ceding leadership of the squad to Warren, a reversal from how the team was generally portrayed from issue 395. Part of this is the split on Warren’s plan; mostly, though, it has to do with the confrontation with Church of Humanity, its Supreme Pontiff, and the way that the group smashes up against Nightcrawler’s Catholicism. In issue 400, something happened with the Supreme Pontiff that Kurt doesn’t recall and he’s been increasingly erratic since then, struggling with a ‘crisis of faith,’ as he puts it to Warren in issue 407. In issue 408, he discovered that humans were using the Vanisher’s drug, one that gives humans a temporary mutation, often killing them in the process, in the basement of a Catholic church. Here, he confronts the cardinal of that parish, only to find him in the middle of injecting himself with the drug.

The ensuing mutation and battle is a bit heavyhanded with the cardinal screaming “BEGONE, DEMON!” as he transforms into a hulking form resembling that of the Thing, except with the black of the cracks and yellow/orange/brown of the stone reversed, and glowing red eyes. As Nightcrawler tries to subdue him, he yells “AT LAST I AM CLOSER TO GOD...!” to further demonstrate the subtlety of the scene. Three members of the Church of Humanity then teleport into the church, kill the cardinal for debasing himself and God, and, then, refrain from attacking Nightcrawler despite him being a mutant because “THE SUPREME PONTIFF HAS PLANS FOR THIS ONE,” teleporting away before Nightcrawler can stop them – which is, in and of itself, a lovely reversal to add an extra level of frustration.

In a final issue of a run, it’s a bit peculiar to include a scene like this. There is no point to Casey trying to further this subplot that he won’t resolve, except acting under the principle of the world he’s writing. This is the other side of the “interpersonal soap opera” of superhero comicbooks, where he could rush a conclusion, temporary or permanent, to this subplot... but, that’s not how things are done. Pick up the baton from the previous writer, pass it to the next... that’s the spirit of the work-for-hire writer in a shared universe. Even more than the Warren/‘mutant businessman’ plot, this one feels particularly unresolved. That story does end, to a degree, by Warren buying out the Vanisher’s men and putting a stop to the flow of drugs. Not every future threat can be solved by simply paying a bunch of money to some criminals, so this could be treated as a one-off resolution without too much cognitive dissonance. The Nightcrawler story, on the other hand...

If I recall, it would make up a decent chunk of Chuck Austen’s infamous run that followed Casey’s. In my head canon, it all ends here and how it plays out is unknown. I’m not sure if Casey even knows what happened next – or cared. But, what this shows is his dedication to the tradition of the form and the X-Men in particular. What’s an X-Men comic without a dangling mystery left by one writer for another to resolve? When Casey was on Cable, he began trying to resolve a previous mystery by bringing back The Twelve and, then, when he left the title in solidarity with Ladrönn, Alan Davis wound up finishing that story in the two main X-Men titles... and one of those plot points, Cyclops’s possession by Apocalypse, would linger enough to play a role in Casey’s first issue of Uncanny X-Men. There’s something fundamental about Casey’s love and respect for superhero comicbooks and the unwritten code about how you do them...

For all that he tries to push the boundaries, particularly at this point in his career, this is still a writer who grew up loving comicbooks. His Uncanny X-Men run is rooted in the tradition of the title, its history, and the shadow of Chris Claremont in particular. He started there and tried to write his way out, eventually hitting that point just in time to be shown the door. The Nightcrawler scenes are less about the character, for our purposes, then what their inclusion says about Casey’s approach to the job. Except, his approach is rooted in doing right by it and the characters... basically, there’s no concern about not finishing the story, it’s about continuing to tell it as long as he’s paid to and remembering that the real author is Marvel Comics. This is the end of Joe Casey’s Uncanny X-Men, not Uncanny X-Men.

the coolest month 26

You grow up thinking things have always been the way that they are. That something came into existence only a short time before you birth means nothing to you, because, for you, it’s always been there. As a result, sometimes, what’s novel or different isn’t actually so, harkening back to a time before you, even a short time before you. Part of growing up is learning different histories and realising the larger picture, that your narrow perspective actually skewed things. In superhero comicbooks, I’ve found the biggest area of obscured history is how the most well known characters settle into a softer version of themselves, with the edges rounded off, and, often, the dramatic changes or revolutionary new takes are sharpening those old edges once again. What I’m saying is, Warren Worthington III drugging the Vanisher and buying up his drug business isn’t the first time some morally ambiguous means were used to defeat the villain.

“HE’S PREDICTABLE AND GREEDY.”

Warren says that near the beginning of Uncanny X-Men #409, brimming with confidence about his plan to take down the Vanisher’s drug empire. The plan where he’s drugged via Stacy X’s pheromone controlling powers, undermined while in a bliss coma, and, then, has it all revealed to him over lunch at Tavern on the Green actually work incredibly well. Because Warren knows Telford Porter all the way back to the beginning when he first emerged on the scene, displaying nothing but greed and overconfidence that didn’t just make him predictable but had him boasting about what he would do before he did it. I spoke of rounded edges, well that never happened to Vanisher – he was always a piece of shit going back to The X-Men #2. An irredeemable shitheel that wouldn’t see much difference between robbing banks of money, the Pentagon of state secrets, or overseeing a drug empire.

No, the edges refer to Charles Xavier, the founder and philosophical head of the X-Men, who is constantly being built up and torn down, remembered as the paragon of virtuousness, revealed as another form of shitheel. Except, he was always a morally ambiguous man, willing to use his powers in ways that would eventually be frowned upon until it was ‘revealed’ that he always had done so. In The X-Men #2, the team and authorities have a hard time managing a man who can teleport at will, and are unable to defeat him as he leads an army of thugs against the X-Men on the grass of the White House. (Side note: it’s actually pretty cool that Professor X leads the X-Men into battle against the Vanisher and an army of regular street thugs on the White House’s front lawn.) Xavier’s method of defeating the Vanisher: erasing his memory of who he is and what he can do. Simple, efficient, effective, and, by the standards later set for the character and all telepaths, completely immoral. I wouldn’t even call it clever as Xavier uses his powers like any other X-Man.

That’s the one area of evolution from Xavier to Warren four decades later. The moral ambiguity is there in their methods – as is the knowledge that Porter is the type of smug asshole to think himself untouchable (his name ain’t Unus, though). In both cases, calling Porter out is what makes him so easy to neutralise. Warren’s plan has main elements, all equally important: Stacy X using her powers to take him out of commission for two weeks, buying him out while he’s away, inviting him to lunch, and Iceman freezing him mid-teleport. The first two elements are based in greed; the latter two are in his predictable overconfidence. Porter wants everything he can get, so he takes Stacy up on her offer – while he traffics in a world where greed is king and his own people hold no loyalty to him beyond a paycheck. When he’s awoken and it’s revealed that Warren engineered the forced timeout, he can’t resist taking Warren up on the invitation because he doesn’t think Warren can actually do anything to him. He underestimates how vulnerable he is as a ‘businessman’ – and in reality as it never occurs to him that the X-Men would basically kill him. He forgot that the X-Men have always fought dirty against him.

It’s funny how it seems so new and different, this plan, when it’s the same playbook as the one from The X-Men #2: call the guy out and kick him in the nards when he least expects it, which is whenever you want because he never expects it. Porter loses because he’s never changed, never grown... he may have faded into the shadows a little more, only barely. He still has to remind everyone he meets that he’s in charge, he’s powerful, he’s the man. The key panel is the look of shock on his face as he hears over the phone that Warren bought his people, that “HE’S RUNNING THE SHOW NOW.” It’s the same look he has on his face when Xavier begins messing with his mind, thinking “WHA... WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME? I CANNOT CONTROL MY POWER!! I CANNOT VANISH!!” Utter disbelief and panic, that sinking feeling in your gut as the world stops making sense.

What really strikes me is not only Warren’s comfort level with the morally ambiguous actions he endorses, it’s how much he enjoys it. He likes playing the smug rich asshole for Porter, calling him scum, letting him stew in his powerlessness in the form of a higher level of capitalism, and the fake magnanimity when he plasters on a grin to say “YOU CERTAINLY TRIED. I’VE GOT TO GIVE YOU THAT. / SORRY IT DIDN’T WORK OUT FOR YOU, PORTER.” Said as if it was a minor business deal no more important than what to order for lunch. It’s such a twist the knife move that it would feel cruel if the guy receiving it wasn’t so awful. It’s the final reminder that what beat Porter was Warren learning from Charles Xavier, who was kind enough to spell out his lesson at the end of The X-Men #2: “ALWAYS REMEMBER, MY X-MEN! .. THE GREATEST POWER ON EARTH IS THE MAGNIFICENT POWER WE ALL OF US POSSESS... THE POWER OF THE HUMAN BRAIN!”

Fittingly, after his first issue of Uncanny X-Men went back to The X-Men #1, Joe Casey’s last picks up with The X-Men #2.

the coolest month 25

Uncanny X-Men #409 is the end of Joe Casey’s tenure on the title. It lasted 19 issues plus an annual, and it only got better as it went, arriving here. At “Rocktopia Part 8 of 5.” “Rocktopia Part 8 of 5” remains one of my favourite comicbook issue titles of all time, if not the favourite. The play off Poptopia, the nod towards Casey’s rock and roll leanings, the jab at everything being a storyarc designed for a trade paperback... and the numbering would place it as the eighth part of a story that began with Uncanny X-Men #402, which ended in issue 406 with three subsequent issues that, along with the annual, were amongst the strongest of the run. At the end. After the clock had run out, after the story was over...

The final issue issues of the run are dedicated to wrapping up a story that Casey began in Annual 2001 with Ashley Wood where the Vanisher was reintroduced as a drug kingpin, supplying a drug based on mutant genes that temporarily give the user their own mutation. If I recall, that idea would show up in the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil. Here, it’s about ending the Vanisher’s little crime empire. And does it happen with a big brawl, the X-Men all in their leather bomber suit costumes, the Vanisher in that ridiculous headdress or whatever it was, surrounded by low level villains not even worth recruiting to the X-Corps? Of course not, because we’re beyond that now.

Picking up on Warren Worthington III’s speech to the G8 in issue 402, by this point, his suit is... well, a suit. His plan is simple: he has Stacy X use her powers to keep the Vanisher is in a two-week bliss coma and, during that time, he buys out the entire crew. From one end to another, the Vanisher comes out of it thinking he’s still on top and finds that money is the real superpower. Or, as Warren puts it:

“FIRST RULE OF THE NEW MUTANT ECONOMY... / ...OWNERSHIP.”

Of course, he then has Bobby Drake freeze the Vanisher mid-teleportation. Because, you know, money is only so powerful. There’s power and there’s power, and Warren, in this issue, is finally beginning to learn to tell the difference between them.

These final three issues of the run are separate from what came before, even if they flow from it. For one thing, Sean Phillips does the line art completely, finally bringing the Wildcats team onto the title the way it probably should have been from the get go. It’s a weird thing with superhero comicbooks where a writer will make their name, impress lots of readers and editors, be given a huge assignment... and paired with an artist nothing like the one they were working with when they impressed everyone so, and, then – then! – everyone wonders why they’re so less impressive. Here at the end, the Powers That Be finally relented and, if you wanted Uncanny X-Men done like Wildcats (usually, the other way around), you’ve got it. It’s hard not to watch the scene in the restaurant with Warren, the Vanisher, and Bobby, and not see Jack Marlowe and Cole Cash. (You’d think Wolverine would be Grifter here, but... actually, he kind of is too...)

Casey is fully into exploring different ways that superheroes can behave by this point. Wildcats shifting into Wildcats Version 3.0 to explore what it means when a corporation, legally treated like a person, is put towards being a superhero. Automatic Kafka where former superheroes keep living on well past the final issue. Adventures of Superman where the most powerful being on the planet, a hero known for always punching out the bad guy, dedicates himself to never throwing another punch. And, Uncanny X-Men, where the idea of ‘post-humanity’ lends itself to wondering how exactly mutants would begin to inherit the Earth, if not through the existing systems. During his meeting with the Vanisher, Warren makes a reference to running for political office, giving some indication of where things may have headed.

The issue begins with a clear statement of the new order (at the end) as Wolverine makes it clear that he doesn’t like Warren’s plan, preferring to go in claws popped and do things the usual way. Warren indicating that those methods don’t always work draws the response, “PLEASE. / GIMME AN EXAMPLE WHEN THEY HAVEN’T. / AND WHO’S GOT THE TRACK RECORD HERE...?” It’s an interesting point, that the usual superhero comicbook stories do always end the same way. Wolverine has always won by popping his claws, leaning on his healing factor, and seeing a little red. But, that doesn’t mean that Warren can’t win by flashing a little green...

What it also means is that the end point is still the same and never really in doubt. Casey’s got an inherent criticism built in from the beginning, that it’s still superhero comicbooks. Good versus bad, the former always winning. Do the methods actually matter? Is it just lipstick on a pig? I’d argue the opposite. If the results are always the same, then they’re irrelevant; all that matters is the means. Otherwise, why bother at all?

I sat upon the shore

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

Shall I at least set my lands in order?