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...

one seldom feels cheerful 28

I can connect

Nothing with nothing.

After Ian Churchill left the title, having done two-and-a-halfish issues, Uncanny X-Men went through a bunch of artists doing bits and pieces starting with issue 396. Oddly, the most consistent artist through issue 400 was Ashley Wood, probably not anyone’s first pick for one of Marvel’s franchise titles from a commercial standpoint. Issue 400, in particular, seemed to push the boundaries of an artistic jam that would decidedly not appeal to X-Men fans. Never mind the Sienkiewicz influence and his landmark work on New Mutants, placing Wood in the tradition. But, hey, there was also Cully Hamner and Eddie Campbell in that issue. Following that, Casey was paired with another popular headliner sort of artist, albeit one that matched up with him creatively better: Ron Garney. Their first issue together was the silent issue as part of Marvel’s ‘Nuff Said month where every comic had no dialogue or captions. That allowed Garney to ease in by dominating the book.

Uncanny X-Men #402 was the first ‘proper’ collaboration between the two where both had their hands untied. Garney’s line work isn’t quite as distinctive or flashy as Churchill’s but he’s surprisingly adept at establishing mood – and the final X-Corps designs are perfect. There’s a bit of visual alignment with Casey’s collaborators on Adventures of Superman, Mike Wieringo and Dustin Aucoin. A kind of blockiness to the forms. Garney isn’t quite as animated as Wieringo or as rough as Aucoin... he kind of delivers a middle ground between the two, still in continuity with two artists Casey was working well with.

Even still, the fit wasn’t perfect from what I could tell. Casey was progressing towards figuring out the title and characters, highlighting the trio of Nightcrawler, Iceman, and Archangel more, treating Chamber and Stacy X as supporting, ‘junior’ members, and leaning more into a thoughtful approach by the team, even if they come off as overly judgmental and reactionary in this issue. Instead, it’s X-Corps that provides the action for Garney to flex those muscles and show off. His action art is crisp and clean, never confusing. It flows better than Churchill’s panel to panel work, but is able to pull off some of those dramatic angle changes better. There’s a more natural storytelling logic to Garney’s art. One of the small details that I enjoy is that he always has the Blob break the panel borders.

Like Churchill, though, Garney didn’t last long before fill-ins took over (this was his last issue with Casey), and Sean Phillips became the de facto regular artist, completing the transformation into a Wildcats copy. There was, once again, no chance to find a groove and good working relationship. The X-Corps story would be finished by Aaron Lopestri and Phillips.

starless inscrutable hour 28

Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair

Spread out in fiery points

Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

Joe Casey and Ian Churchill’s second issue, Uncanny X-Men #395, is a less successful comicbook. Churchill’s strengths from the previous issue are still on display, only less so. From what I can tell, there are two reasons for this: Casey’s script isn’t as tight or aimed at providing a big impression like on the previous issue with its one-off structure and mandate to kick off the new creative era; and, judging from the ensuing issues and Churchill’s quick absence, he was possibly already pushing to make deadlines (which is not meant to criticise Churchill as there are any number of reasons why this could have been the case, many outside of his control – I’m not here to litigate someone’s ability to hit deadlines, particularly with no knowledge of the situation).

That second point is partly contextual, partly the final sequence of the issue where Mister Clear attacks the mutants in the sewers, and that scene is Churchill’s weakest batch of pages. Although, to be honest, the first sequence in the sewers is also below Churchill’s other work. He seemed to really struggle with depicting the ‘freakish’ mutants. Even one that seemed relatively simple and in his comfort zone, the Cyclops, never really hits visually. It looks like Churchill could never get the one big eye in the middle of the forehead to look right. In a lot of panels, he has it shut, giving the character this big slit in his forehead that looks awkward.

The two characters that Churchill absolutely nails whenever they show up are Chamber and Nightcrawler. Chamber is such a visually dynamic character, even when standing still, due to the energy effect of his powers. His first appearance in this issue is among Churchill’s best: energy spewing from his chest, long leather jacket kinda blowing along with his hair, the tail of his shirt blown up to reveal his navel... it’s a magnificent introductory panel that just stop you dead. Nightcrawler is the opposite of Chamber, who doesn’t do anything physically dynamic but is visually appealing anyway. For Nightcrawler, Churchill leans into his leanness and agility and rarely has him simply standing like anyone else. It’s all flips and hanging upside down and weird bent-over-backwards yoga poses. Like Chamber, you get a real sense of who this character is just by looking at him.

The way this run lost its steam quickly is down to the disconnect between Casey and Churchill. Casey has said that Churchill was recruited first and, even knowing that, it doesn’t seem like Casey made enough of an effort to hit the artist’s strengths. Moreover, I’m not sure Casey was in the right space to do so. At the beginning of the run, he didn’t quite have a handle on a strong direction and his scripts meander a bit. Less action, more talking... more like Wildcats. Which is a shame, because I was actually excited by the combination of these two when they were announced on Uncanny X-Men back in late 2000. Both men had won over my approval thanks to the multi-year subscription that I had to Cable coming out of Age of Apocalypse where I was just a bit too naive/out of the loop to not know that X-Man wouldn’t go on forever and, while I got the final two issues of that series, it transitioned to Cable (rather than issue five of X-Man). That meant reading a bunch of Jeph Loeb/Ian Churchill issues (his cover to Cable #25 is still a favourite, speaking of a time where he nailed cramming a ton of figures/detail into an image – it was a gatefold cover, I believe) and, eventually, the first Joe Casey Marvel issue, Cable #51. While the two never worked together on that title, it was a nice coming together of people whose work I dug at different periods of the title on another X-book... and it didn’t work.

Just one of those things.

the cruellest month 28

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Was it Joe Casey’s fault that his Uncanny X-Men run unfurled the way it did? Paired from the onset with Ian Churchill, it never felt like a smooth pairing, one of two creatives meshing, which is a bit of a prerequisite for a comicbook to be successful on nearly any level. Unless one of the two primary members of the creative team is doing such stellar work as to compensate for the other, it’s almost impossible for a comic to really hit if there isn’t some level of harmony. While Casey would admit to his own failings when discussing Uncanny X-Men #394, I don’t think the mismatch with Churchill was as apparent in their first issue.

What’s readily apparent in Uncanny X-Men #394 is that Churchill’s strength is single images. He’s not a bad panel to panel storyteller, it’s that he really shines when he can try to hit a single, impactful visual that’s meant to arrest your attention. Flipping through the issue, almost every page has one or two panels that, taken on their own, at wonderful compositions. Usually, these images are built around a single focus. Churchill isn’t a George Perez kind of artist where you want to pack panels with tons of characters and objects. His more unsuccessful panels are where the focus is divided or there’s too much going on. The first page is practically perfect in the way each of the four panels have a single focus that he can make pop and draw your eye towards.

I think this is what Casey meant when he said that the inside of Warp Savant’s head wasn’t suited to Churchill’s skills and that he should have done a better job tailoring the script to his artist’s abilities. As written/requested, it seems like Casey wanted a chaotic realm full of random objects and subconscious tidbits, filling up every bit of every panel with details; except, Churchill’s best compositions are the ones where the background is minimal or absent. He’s so good at giving a character or two posed just right. From the cover to Cyclops’s turning to talk to Jean to Warp Savant charging into Cape Citadel or warping the general... It’s not about big panels or splashes necessarily, but really tight foci for Churchill to home in on and present in the best possible way.

For all its flaws, I think Casey gives Churchill a lot of opportunities to do that in this issue. As I said, nearly every page has a panel or two that absolutely sings. A big part of Churchill’s problem is that he appears to put too much emphasis into adding movement over the course of scenes, often by changing angles. That limits the effectiveness of panel to panel transitions, and winds up creating some awkward compositions. The page where Warp Savant does his little rant before Wolverine descends from on high is a great example with the middle panel opting for this odd angle from beneath the character before jumping to Wolverine’s perspective from above over the final two panels – both of which are quite good, particularly the transition from distant-above to closer-above perspectives. Another fantastic sequence of panels is on the second page, while in a club, Warp Savant looks at a bottle of alcohol in one panel, warps it in the next, and then keeps looking at us/the girls with an empty hand raised – all done from the same perspective with the same sized panels, it’s great, basic visual storytelling over successive images.

This issue provides a good indication of how to tailor scripts to Churchill’s strengths with a brisker-paced issue, lots of opportunities for single/dual character panels, and really simplifying the visuals requested. I don’t think Casey had enough lead time to really see that and alter his approach, nor did Churchill last on the book long enough.

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?

the cruellest month 24

Warp Savant is an entitled character. A young white man who uses words like “skanks” without much compunction as they seemingly hang off his every word, his entire attack on Cape Citadel is a temper tantrum disguised as rebellion. It’s an element that Grant Morrison hits harder in “Riot at Xavier’s” with Quentin Quire. What does Warp Savant seem to have to complain about? From what we see, he does what he wants, he has no problem attracting women, his mutant nature hasn’t made him a target... The brief glimpse into his life is one of privilege and comfort.

What do you do with your privilege? could be a theme of Joe Casey’s Uncanny X-Men run if you squint. It’s the progression of the run, I’d argue, and it does begin with Warp Savant and the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #394.

Warp Savant uses his privilege to do whatever he wants for his own selfish reasons. It’s all id and whims and thoughtlessness. He evokes childishness with the mimicry of Bugs Bunny and the way he misquotes song lyrics. Even his introduction: alone, in a room with a computer. When he’s in the club with three women, he sits apart, barely wants to engage with them. He doesn’t even drink alcohol that we see, he just absorbs it with his powers. He’s playing at a certain image – he copies Magneto because he can’t actually think of anything his own. All he does is take, take, take, and cares little for anyone else.

Warren Worthington III expressing some sign of recognition in Warp Savant at the end of the issue is the smallest glimpse into what the run would eventually become. Worthington, despite his history with his wings, Apocalypse, and becoming Archangel, is also a man of privilege. We normally view him exclusively through the lens of his wings and blue skin despite his mutant abilities actually taking a back seat to his true source of power. Aside from the odd reference or brief glimpse, his immense wealth is rarely harnessed for any greater good or something beyond himself. What does Warp Savant live for? What does Warren?

You can extend this into the ‘interpersonal soap opera’ element of issue 394. Scott and Logan have their privileged positions. Scott, in the aftermath, of his possession at the hands of Apocalypse is taking his entire life for granted, to an extent, particularly his relationship with his wife. His coldness is partly an expression of who he is and what he’s feeling, but it’s also predicated on the knowledge that he can. He can be a distant, cold husband, and he’s relying on Jean to deal with it. The way that he emphasises the word ‘wife’ indicates how much he’s relying on the formalisation of their roles in their relationship to maintain the status quo that he’s also pushing against as he sees fit.

Logan, seeing this distance, tries to take advantage, taking for granted the idea that, if it weren’t for Scott, Jean would be with him. He has no problem, when the situation suits him, to acting as if her attraction to him is automatic and only limited by her wedding vows, like some technicality that she wishes weren’t there. When he kisses her and they seemingly face death, it’s his acting on this sense of entitlement, as if he’s owed that if he’s going to cease to exist. It wouldn’t be right for him to no longer be and not have Jean, an attitude that doesn’t end when they don’t die. There’s always a presumption, similar to Scott’s, that Jean is his on some level.

Warp Savant’s ‘death’ at the end is another act of privilege. Faced with the consequences of his actions, he chooses to avoid them – or control them, at minimum. We don’t know if he dies or what actually becomes of him. If he doesn’t die and, instead, lives in his own bubble world, then he basically opts out of consequences for a reality where he’s his own god. After all, his powers are based on the idea of control and overwhelming power over anything he chooses. It’s a lesson that, however subtle and seemingly unrelated, Warren learns from...

one seldom feels cheerful 23

The rot was there from the beginning for the X-Corps. At the end of Uncanny X-Men #402, Sean Cassidy goes to a secure room in some sub-basement and there’s Lady Mastermind held in a tank, forcibly awake, and Cassidy says, “TIME TO TEST YOUR LIMITS, LASS... / DON’T LET ME DOWN.” There are few moments in superhero comicbooks that so disappoint me. I’ve read many, many worse comics, sure. To disappoint is to fall short of expectations. In this case, the premise of Sean Cassidy starting up an alternative to the X-Men that could, at least, begin to actively challenge the hegemony of Xavier’s group, was enough. There had been other rival mutant groups, but none that were meant to be so explicitly an alternative. It was a hint of a step into something beyond the usual X-Men bubble where everything is X-Men or junior X-Men or violent X-Men or evil mutants. And, after less than a full issue devoted to the idea, it’s evil mutants. Again.

It often feels like one step forward, two steps back, doesn’t it? What bothers me is how unnecessary those two steps always seem, to me. I don’t see the point, the up side. If Casey were writing Deadpool as part of the cast, I’m sure we’d get a meta joke about ‘genre conventions’ or something equally witty and quippy meant to be cover up how bland and clichéd a creative choice it is. Cowardly is actually my preferred term for the choice. After an entire issue of setting up the X-Corps, facing hypocritical judgment from the X-Men, and seemingly overcoming them, it’s all undercut immediately. Immediately. It’s so goddamn cowardly and unoriginal and boring.

This comic came out a week or two after Adventures of Superman #612, an issue that showed more conviction and courage in the way it didn’t shy away from the ‘Golden Age’ Superman that appeared. A Superman that cared about social justice, not only supervillains. He took on crooked cops, abusive husbands, saved innocent men from death row, and was a reminder that, once upon a time, Superman was much more radical. At the end of the issue, as the fictional ‘Champion of the Oppressed’ is undone, he asks the real Superman to remember him and what he stood for, and the hero says he will. It’s a promise that doesn’t flinch or walk itself back.

The real problem with Uncanny X-Men #395 is that it doesn’t have any juice. Chamber saves a popstar. The X-Men encounter some mutants in the sewers. A bigot tries to kill them all. Compared to what came after Poptopia, this issue feels two-dimensional, like Joe Casey is writing on autopilot, waiting for real inspiration to strike. Throw together some stuff about ‘pop eats itself’ and X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks, and maybe it will add up to something. Squint hard enough and you can find something, I’ll admit. Chamber is the perfect character, meandering through the issue, finding himself in a position for something big and not really trying.

Warp Savant is more appealing as a character. He’s a little shit, but he tries. An 18-year old does something foolish, seeing no real future in anything that Xavier’s crew has to offer. He paints a picture of some essential truth about Casey as he struggled to find his way into a gig that he just fell into. It’s not that he was too good for it or too cool or didn’t even have a problem with the X-Men. If he hated the title, that would have meant something with energy and feeling. Instead, it was sort of a big shrug and a resigned work his way through. Who knows what it was like behind the scenes. Does it matter? We have the comicbooks and the end result is tepid, at best, until half a year in. Do the comics get a lot better? No. But, something changes. There seems to be some nugget of interest and truth in them. What seemed like fumbling around becomes a larger theme...

Do the X-Men understand Warp Savant? No, and he ‘dies.’ Do the X-Men understand the mutants in the sewers? No, and many of them die. Do the X-Men understand the X Ranch? No, but they try a bit harder. Do the X-Men understand the X-Corps? No, and... they’re proven right. Do you see the problem? There’s a progression of the X-Men encountering something outside of their comfort zone, something new, and not knowing what to do with it. And they fail and keep struggling through. Would they have had to agree with Cassidy’s thinking behind the X-Corps? No. It could have been something as simple as a guarded respect without endorsement. Instead, it was evil mutant bullshit, Cassidy getting played, and Grant Morrison taking the name for their own purpose in New X-Men. Pop eats itself, eh?

I’ll give Casey credit. Even though it’s a dagger in my heart, in a way, the direction that the X-Corps story goes, he doesn’t give up. “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose” as it were.

one seldom feels cheerful 22

As much as I appreciate the concept of the X-Corps as a non-X-Men entity working towards advancing mutant interests in a cooperative manner with humanity, there’s a scene in Uncanny X-Men #402 that holds greater importance. Call it a baby step towards where Joe Casey’s time on the title would end – and a sign of things to come well beyond. It’s a rather basic scene, one might even call dull by modern standards. It’s barely more than a gesture, honestly. We take what we can get.

Checking up on Sean Cassidy’s new X-Corps venture isn’t the only reason for the X-Men to be in Europe; they’re also there so that Warren Worthington III can address the leadership at a G8 Summit in Rome. Blue skin, wings out, nice suit on, he steps up in front of the leaders of the most powerful Western nations and begins by saying, “MY INTEREST HERE TODAY IS NOT AS A BUSINESSMAN... BUT AS A MUTANT.” Along with Charles Xavier outing himself as a mutant in New X-Men, this is a powerful moment towards progressing the concept of mutants in the world. It’s a far cry from the days of X-Factor where the original five X-Men posed as humans.

The idea of Warren going to the G8 Summit and using his position as owner of a large multinational corporation to actually speak on mutant issues is a bit more progressive than it may seem at first glance. We’re used to seeing the odd scene where Superman addresses the United Nations or Captain America speaks in Congress – the idea of superheroes temporarily entering the political realm for a quick word isn’t new. In this world, mutants are meant to be outcasts, feared and hated, legally hunted down in many cases. The genocide of Genosha is barely in the past. World leaders sitting and listening as a mutant talks about mutant issues is no small thing. And Warren using his considerable resources towards that end is a hint of where Casey would take both this title and Wildcats, exploring what it would mean to treat a corporation as a superhero.

The substance of Warren’s speech is actually fairly benign. A lot of attempt to calm down the world leaders, let them know that the X-Men are on the side of peaceful coexistence and not looking to upend the status quo. You could call is weak, particularly when set next to Xavier, Magneto, and Apocalypse’s meeting with world leaders... Yet, there are some more progressive ideas in the speech than appear on first glance. It’s very calculated as a first step to position not just the X-Men as the ‘reasonable’ mutants that can be worked with, but Warren specifically as the key person to work with. His initial emphasis that he’s a businessman, for example, is there to not-so-subtly remind everyone that he’s incredibly wealthy and of a certain social class. He may have blue skin and wings, but he’s also already part of the club. He can be thought of the same way they’d think of any owner/CEO of a multinational corporation. There’s a level of trust and comfort in Warren being the face of mutant politics.

Much of the speech is about acknowledging the possible fears, admitting that they are reasonable, meeting them on their terms, so that he can shift it to how reasonable and accommodating he and the X-Men are. He even points to the various different agendas in the mutant community and positions the X-Men as the group that will bring every other mutant in line. Even more importantly, he says “THE X-MEN ARE COMMITTED TO FURTHERING THE CAUSE OF MUTANT RIGHTS... BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE HUMAN RACE. CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION, WE ARE NOT YOUR REPLACEMENTS.” It’s a lie, as we know, given Henry McCoy’s findings about humanity dying out in a few generations. It’s a lie couched in truths that Warren believes, though; he does believe that the X-Men are the only way forward for mutants and humans to exist together in peace, as we’ve seen by the almost visceral reaction to the X-Corps, a group that operates different from the X-Men but not dramatically so.

The smartest ploy in his speech comes at the end where Warren repositions the issue to something more palatable: “I COME TO YOU AS A POTENTIAL ALLY IN AN EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS THAT WE MUST NOT TAKE LIGHTLY. THIS IS NOT ABOUT GENETICS. THIS IS ABOUT POLITICAL EVOLUTION... SOCIAL EVOLUTION. / THIS IS ABOUT THE FUTURE, GENTLEMAN, AND I HAVE BROUGHT THE FIGHT TO YOU.” A few things happen in a small time frame here. First, Warren emphasises himself as a “potential ally,” which continues to put himself as the face of mutant politics. Then, he begins using language generally associated with mutants like ‘evolution,’ and, then, shifts it away from genetics, reframing it as political and social. Genetics can’t be managed, they’re absolutes. Politics and social concepts, though, are what these individuals work in and know, what they feel comfortable with. If you focus on the genetic difference between mutants and humans, it’s hard not to continually run into the us/them problem. If you treat it as a political/social issue, well, then it can be whatever you want. When Warren mentions the future and bringing the fight, he’s challenging them to envision the future that they want – that they control and how they can work with him to make mutants an asset in that future. It’s all about planting the idea that the issue of mutant rights can be used to their advantage... and Warren Worthington III, a fellow rich white man, is just the person to help them.

Casey had begun a few issues previously to toy with the idea of Warren’s wealth as a means to explore some different ideas about mutants in the world, specifically with the X Ranch brothel. That was a tease that is beginning to bear out here. It’s not a coincidence that Uncanny X-Men #402 came out a week or two after Adventures of Superman #612, the first issue of that revolutionary final year where Casey wrote thehero as a pacifist, and around six months or so before Wildcats Version 3.0 and Automatic Kafka would launch. Did you think that Uncanny X-Men was really that much of an outlier?

one seldom feels cheerful 21

The specifics of what the X-Men object to in Uncanny X-Men #402 about Sean Cassidy’s X-Corps almost don’t matter except for their capacity to reveal hypocrisy. I don’t know if that was the intent. This story is one of those stories where, immediately, what I was reading and interpreting seemed to differ from what was meant. After all, this is a comicbook starring the X-Men – typically, the stars of a comicbook are not meant to be made to look like hypocrites and fools. Yet, it seems like that’s the only interpretation one could have. Maybe it’s me. But, I stand by my interpretation that this is a story, however it plays out, about exploring the possibility of an alternate method to Xavier’s that is not inherently evil. (Even though it turned out to be inherently evil and I guess I should’ve known because ACAB and all.) So, the litany:

The first sin that Cassidy commits is simply doing something different. When I say the X-Men, I’m referring to Nightcrawler, Archangel, and Iceman. While Chamber and Stacy X are both there, they’re relegated to a few mumbled comments, not direct critical conversation. Looking at the main trio, all have been part of groups that splintered off from the X-Men to approach the mutant issue their own way. Excalibur was similarly European and formed out of the seeming death of the X-Men, but, quickly, turned into a cross-dimensional magic focused sort of mutant team that wasn’t really in sync with Xavier’s mission. It didn’t really engage with The Dream until well into its run, if I recall correctly. During it’s hayday under Chris Claremont and Alan Davis, it was something else entirely. And no one told that crew that they were allowed to do what they did.

The more egregious group is the original X-Factor, of which Iceman and Archangel were both members. The original five X-Men pretending to be human mutant-hunters, feeding into anti-mutant sentiment to save mutants. That’s a fairly large different from The Dream. It shows a certain practicality and, upon reflection, is a fairly direct antecedent to X-Corps. (Has Casey escaped Claremont to fall under the sway of Simonson?) For them to question what Cassidy is doing, particularly on an initially small amount of information, is brash and completely unaware, at worst entitled.

The second sin is the militaristic approach Sean takes. Using Multiple Man as his one-man support staff, there’s a speedy and efficiency on display, backed up by Cassidy’s confidence and knowledge, that gives off the impression that X-Corps is quite adept at what they do. Yet, there’s little that Cassidy does that you couldn’t imagine Cyclops doing. The same decisiveness, the same no nonsense direct talk, the same efficient competence... How could an alternative to the X-Men actually be well run? (I love that Stacy X ominously wondering why all of the people working at X-Corps look exactly alike is never directly answered, leaving the very concept of Multiple Man as another criticism or suggestion of something sinister at play here...)

The third sin is that the X-Corps uses former villains as the “Bastard Squad” of field operatives. Avalanche, Surge, and Blob are all put into play with Avalanche taking the lead and saying things like “YOU WANNA LEAVE A JOB LIKE THIS TO THE PROFESSIONALS.” The X-Men express deep concerns over employing former villains as if, firstly, Sean Cassidy isn’t one himself; secondly, Emma Frost, his former co-headmaster, isn’t one also and currently a member of the X-Men in New X-Men; or, thirdly, the long, long history of villainous mutants joining the X-Men when the mood suited them or Charles Xavier. Magneto was once in charge of the school, after all. Perhaps, it’s that the villains don’t seem ideologically motivated... it’s never stated directly, but the implied reason for their presence and compliance is that they’re employees. Their stake in Cassidy’s new group is a financial one and that’s somehow less than acceptable. Easy for the beneficiaries of Xavier’s wealth – or Archangel’s own wealth – to pretend like money could never be a legitimate motive. It may be the only legitimate motive for men like Avalanche, Surge, and Blob at this point, honestly. They’ve all heard the sales pitch for The Dream and turned it down; giving them a job to be ‘good’ is the better of the available options.

All of their objections seem to boil down to the first one: who is Sean Cassidy is decide on his own direction for human/mutant relations without permission?

It actually reminds me of a trend that I noticed at DC during the late ‘90s/early ‘00s where it seems like every few years, one of the ‘Big Seven’ members of the Justice League would ‘go rogue’ and try to ‘make the world a better place,’ bringing them into conflict with the rest of the JLA. Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman... each took their turn deciding to act upon their personal morality and it was always greeted with selective amnesia of the previous times this happened, and always with a unified moral outrage that anyone could do such a thing. It’s about a collective moral adherence to the status quo, which is an external mandate from outside the world of the superhero comicbooks. That’s why it always feels like my reading of this story is wrong. I can’t believe that Marvel would want me to think that there’s a point to the X-Corps and that the X-Men look hypocritical and unaware of their own history and actions.

Early on in the issue, Nightcrawler talks about how they’re all on the ‘front lines’ of human/mutant relations and asks Cassidy, “IS THIS THE MESSAGE WE WANT TO SEND?” His response both sums up his perspective and the exact problem that the X-Men have with it: “THIS IS THE MESSAGE I WANT TO SEND.” That singular perspective that goes against the collective, against the singular influence... we can’t have that. Right?

one seldom feels cheerful 20

A writer named Claremont marked an X

Signifying hatred and violence and sex

His influence spread

What came next inbred

It is the inescapable text

We, ah, reach that awkward point in this improvisation where I admit that the work of Chris Claremont is a bit of a blind spot for me. I’ve read some, barely scratched the surface. Mostly via a subscription I had as a kid one year for X-Men Classic, the reprint series for X-Men ala Marvel Tales for Spider-Man. The bit that I had covered Uncanny X-Men #189-200, which is a helluva run. John Romita, Jr. young and energetic, Xavier in leather and fishnets, Nimrod roaming the subways, Magneto on trial... I don’t remember a lot, bits and pieces. Some other X-Men comics here and there. Had a black and white mass market paperback reprint of a two-parter with Arcade and some other issues, too. Never went back and read the whole thing. It’s so big, so influential, that you don’t need to experience it directly. And, in my experience, when you do, it’s a letdown due to just how many folks ripped it off.

Uncanny X-Men #402 shows the potential of the Joe Casey Uncanny X-Men run as he begins to push beyond. You can see the influence of the Freedom Force, of course. And of X-Force, but that wasn’t Claremont, was it? A challenge to the monopoly of The Dream. It actually began with the previous issue, but that was one of those ‘Nuff Said silent issues and we all know how uncomfortable English lit guys like me are with the pictures. It’s a fine enough issue and I salute the intrepid critic who would tackle those issues first and foremost... This followup to the introduction of the X-Corps lays it all out. Sean Cassidy (Banshee) has started up a new mutant police force in Europe and our Uncanny cast don’t like it one bit, willfully blind to the rampant hypocrisy behind every one of their objections. You can argue that Uncanny X-Men #394 or Poptopia or even Uncanny X-Men #400 were the failures of Casey’s time on the book, and I’d have a lot of time for those arguments. But, for me, it’s the X-Corps and the way that Casey began to look beyond the limits of the X-Men a little, venture away from Wildcats and towards Wildcats Version 3.0.

Going back to The X-Men #1, there haven’t been many challenges to Charles Xavier’s way of doing things. The primary one has always been Magneto, followed by Apocalypse. Cable’s X-Force was an alternative/evolution of the New Mutants, but, really, not that different. The Counter X titles tried to take some of the characters in different directions, as did the change from Cable to Solider X. The Milligan/Allred X-Force was definitely different, but seemed relatively divorced from the grand question of mutant ideology, focusing more on the celebrity angle. Presented here, Cassidy’s X-Corps is meant to be a different sort of very public face for a ‘good’ mutant group. Not superheroes; police. Working with authorities to handle mutant issues, arresting mutants, dispensing mutant justice... all with sanction from the EU via Cassidy’s old Interpol contacts.

The reaction from Nightcrawler, Archangel, Iceman, Chamber, and Stacy X seems to boil down to “Who said you could do this?” Before you get into the specifics of their complaints, that’s the core principle and, honestly, the only one truly worth exploring at first. Who owns The Dream? Who’s allowed to act on their interpretation of it? In the mind of the X-Men, it’s only them. Only Xavier’s chosen few can enforce The Dream. Unless, of course, they decide that Xavier himself has lost his way and, then, it’s them. Unless, of course, some of them disagree with the rest of them, and, then, it’s... er, both of them? What I enjoy most about Nightcrawler being the de facto leader of this group is that he brings the cult subtext just that little bit to the forefront. That idea of the bubble that is escapable, is infallible, that you must bend the knee to. If you are not with the X-Men, you are against the X-Men.

Can you do a mutant comicbook for Marvel outside of the X-Men?

For the first time during his time on Uncanny X-Men, Casey seems to be striving for something new. What started as ‘pop eats itself’ and X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks has turned into what else can they be? You can draw vague similarities to Freedom Force working for the US government, including that some of its members are present as part of X-Corps, but a truly separate approach to human/mutant public interaction that is not based on antagonism, instead showing that mutants can work with humans to handle mutant problems? That feels like something worth exploring, worth seeing if it’s got some juice. It doesn’t feel as new as it is. You may instinctively say “Claremont did it!” and, while it rubs up against some stuff, as presented, a true alternate method separate from the X-Men that isn’t based on being a ‘supervillain’ is different.

It all goes to shit, of course. This is the beginning of the end, the true failure of the run. I don’t know where the blame for the rot lies exactly. Maybe it was Casey not realising what he had? Maybe it was editorial afraid of what it had? Maybe it was the general superhero comicbook reversion to the mean that is oh so frustrating. Ultimately, you can’t escape the bubble. Even the seemingly ‘good’ alternative must be ‘bad.’ It sucks and it is what it is.

“Forget it, Chad, it’s Poptopia.”

starless inscrutable hour 19

In the name of Claremont will you mutant me up that comicbook,

Shall I doodle cave-phantoms?

We, ah, reach that awkward point in this improvisation where I admit that the work of Chris Claremont is a bit of a blind spot for me. I’ve read some, barely scratched the surface. Mostly via a subscription I had as a kid one year for X-Men Classic, the reprint series for X-Men ala Marvel Tales for Spider-Man. The bit that I had covered Uncanny X-Men #189-200, which is a helluva run. John Romita, Jr. young and energetic, Xavier in leather and fishnets, Nimrod roaming the subways, Magneto on trial... I don’t remember a lot, bits and pieces. Some other X-Men comics here and there. Had a black and white mass market paperback reprint of a two-parter with Arcade and some other issues, too. Never went back and read the whole thing. It’s so big, so influential, that you don’t need to experience it directly. And, in my experience, when you do, it’s a letdown due to just how many folks ripped it off.

That’s the feeling of Poptopia. A rip off. Haven’t I read these stories before? Or at least heard about them? If Claremont is the Platonic Ideal, then we’re definitely watching shadows on the wall. A mutant leaving the X-Men in the hopes of living a normal life? Claremont did it. A group of desperate, freakish mutants living in the sewers? Claremont did it. A popstar all up in mutant affairs? Claremont did it. A mysterious mutant exterminator with a name recalling a previously known entity that thematically connects to what it’s doing? Claremont did it. You know the gag, because another show did it.

Except, where Claremont referenced Shakespeare and the Bible, all Casey has are mascots and X-Men comicbooks. The fight between Storm and Callisto for leadership of the Morlocks is turned into a barely-there conflict between Nightcrawler and the Cyclops. Except, there is a double meaning to the Cyclops’s name, both obvious. Immediately, he recalls the X-Men’s longstanding leader and guiding light – but, also, his own namesake, the mythological being with only a single eye in the middle of its forehead, which is how this mutant appears. Like Callisto, this character is a reference to mythology, going beyond the obvious self-referential bit to something more archetypal in its influence on all Western literature... and, by doing so, turns back on itself to point to Callisto, whose name is also taken from mythology, making the mythological reference actually an X-Men comicbook reference. Even when you think you’ve escaped, all roads lead to Xavier. The biggest twist is that Nightcrawler simply leaves the conflict, not wanting to earn the respect of these mutants through violence.

The little twists on the stories already told is the point. Take what came before and make it your own. It’s a longstanding tradition in storytelling, somehow seen as less than within the realm of superhero comicbooks. But, when you cast the Claremont run into the foundational mythological base of the X-Men – the ur-text, if you will – what other options are there? It’s no win. Everything is a variation or a reaction. You either become Claremont or you respond to Claremont. Casey takes Claremont on his own terms, casting these stories in new lights that make sense within the context of Casey’s body of work. A superhero not interested in solving problems with violence? See Adventures of Superman. A brooding former superhero looking to make a new life and avoid trouble in the spotlight of the tabloid media? See Automatic Kafka. A superhero comic that is so influenced by a single creator that you could argue that it turns that creator’s work into a genre unto itself? See Gødland.

If Warp Savant is a Casey stand-in, a metaphor for the comicbook obsessed continuity-junkie that takes it all in and has his very own head canon, then he’s Casey as a Claremont character. And his head canon is Casey’s through the lens of Claremont as a genre. What follows is Poptopia, a fever dream straight from that particular mind. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes that the entire Casey run takes place within Warp Savant. Metaphorically, of course. Isn’t that what all comicbook runs are? Little, self-contained pockets of cultural reality that we stack up to form our own canons? “Consistency, not continuity” is just another way of saying “What makes sense to me.” If an X-Men comicbook goes unread, did it even add to the mythology? I don’t want to say that Casey’s run doesn’t have its fans and its influences, but, alongside the joint run of his Man of Action cohorts and many others, it’s all detritus. Stacks of stories that are supposed to ‘count’ somehow, but I didn’t read so who cares. Maybe someday they’ll ‘count’ if I get around to them.

That makes this whole run an exercise, of sorts, that stands by itself. If there is any interaction, it’s with the idea of Claremont’s X-Men work as a genre unto itself, and Casey’s other work. If there’s a Venn diagram, welcome to the centre. That makes the choices somewhat purposeful. It’s not hard to see Chamber as the flipside of Warp Savant. Similar ages, looks, outlook on life... but for a giant hole blasted in one’s chest, you know? Attacking a military base and saving a popstar aren’t so different when you realise it’s the same impulse, the same desires... X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks... And, if Warp Savant is Casey and Chamber is Warp Savant, then Chamber is Casey...

If you like Casey...

the cruellest month 18

O O O O that Claremontean Rag—

It’s so uncanny

So x-treme

We, ah, reach that awkward point in this improvisation where I admit that the work of Chris Claremont is a bit of a blind spot for me. I’ve read some, barely scratched the surface. Mostly via a subscription I had as a kid one year for X-Men Classic, the reprint series for X-Men ala Marvel Tales for Spider-Man. The bit that I had covered Uncanny X-Men #189-200, which is a helluva run. John Romita, Jr. young and energetic, Xavier in leather and fishnets, Nimrod roaming the subways, Magneto on trial... I don’t remember a lot, bits and pieces. Some other X-Men comics here and there. Had a black and white mass market paperback reprint of a two-parter with Arcade and some other issues, too. Never went back and read the whole thing. It’s so big, so influential, that you don’t need to experience it directly. And, in my experience, when you do, it’s a letdown due to just how many folks ripped it off.

Warp Savant is a pure Joe Casey character. That gleeful embrace of villainy, that energetic youthful disregard for maturity and authority, those misremembered song lyrics... But, he’s also a character in an X-Men comicbook and he owes some of his elements to Chris Claremont because they all do. It may just be the leather jacket and mesh tank top, that youthful club look straight out of a punk fetish magazine. He looks like he should be hanging with the Morlocks or be a Hound from the future. His M face tattoo is taken from Bishop. He’s every seedy kink from that run except utterly sexless at the same time. A pale imitation of that Claremontean character type that we’re all vaguely familiar with, using a plan that the original X-Men villain tried and failed at decades earlier (or however long in continuity). Walking X-Men comicbook mishmash, a refugee from continuity and canon. There’s a mysterious element to Warp Savant that feels like the bad, rotting influence of Claremont. A villain that appears from nowhere, no past, no clear motive... just fucking shit up and disappears without a trace. We don’t know he died. He’d probably come back as another lost Summers brother.

His name has long vexed me. I know we’re at the point in superhero comicbook history where there’s a premium on original names as, let’s be honest, were it not for copyright law, you’d have a ton of Supermans and Megamans and Ultramans and so on running around. On some level, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Casey was in the middle of his Wildcats work and chose to use the word ‘Savant’ in the name of a new mutant character given that Claremont is the co-creator of the character Savant from way back in WildC.A.T.S. #11. A small, subtle connection – though, how subtle, really? How many Savants are there running around the worlds of superhero comicbooks? Throw it all in the pot.

X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks.

Poptopia.

It’s not a bad thing, by the way. If you looked across the hall, you would’ve saw Grant Morrison doing similar things. Using and reusing old ideas in new ways. Self-referential, deep cuts for the true fans, and unable to escape the insulated bubble world. It’s like Warp Savant casts a spell here, brings us all inside his head canon with him. The shifting, mixed up world of X-Men comicbooks where you’ve already read them all and the details seem familiar yet fresh. Chris Claremont as a genre. Casey taps into the first bit of soap opera from Claremont’s time with the characters, finally delivering on it, only to explain it away as a half-remembered dream, basically.

“DO YOUR RESEARCH...” Warp Savant advises Jean when she uses telekinesis to knock him down but not out. It’s a warning, a bit of friendly advice from the ‘next Kurt Busiek’ per Wizard. Casey’s Marvel career to this point had been bad rush jobs or comics peppered with continuity minutia for the True Believers out there. He may have been more of an Avengers guy, but even he had a passing familiarity with the X-Men. Enough to understand its roots and the major figure that looms over the characters. Hell, he was displacing him by taking over Uncanny X-Men given the way that Claremont’s long-heralded return flopped with readers. He still had his fans and those that got what he was laying down (I’m in the tank for Jim Starlin, similarly), enough to warrant his own new X-Men series... but not enough to headline.

But... he... is... inescapable...

Did people want more Claremont? Was it even possible to not give that to them? As I said, you could make a very good argument that Morrison did the same thing, but they managed to make it seem fresh enough to, somehow, win readers over. Joss Whedon would do something similar with Astonishing X-Men eventually. How many ‘definitive’ runs can a superhero comicbook have? At what point does the assumed supremacy become the actual supremacy in effect? You can call Casey’s run a failure (and he’d most likely agree), but how many succeeded? After Claremont’s departure, it chewed folks up and spit them out... including Claremont himself...

All that remains is a scene where all of the X-Men have Chris Claremont’s face, saying nothing but CLAREMONT...

Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter

the cruellest month 17

“Ahhhh, Poptopia... I remember being more jazzed about the story titles than I was about the actual story, as it ultimately played out.” And what a title it is, Joe; a title that seems to encompass everything about this run on Uncanny X-Men. A thought experiment of culture and comicbooks and the ‘real’ world all smashed together in a little bubble. As the refrain goes X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks and so too Poptopia. You could call Uncanny X-Men #394 “Poptopia Part Zero” rather than “Playing God,” if you wanted to be a bit more on the nose regarding its place within the run, both thematically and literally. Despite the fact that the issue is an outlier in its cast and plot, call it a prelude, a prologue, an introduction, an overture... It sets the stage for all that follows, setting out the big ideas under ten tons of interpersonal soap opera.

But... who is “Playing God” exactly?

Presumably, we’re meant to think it’s Warp Savant as he invades the Cape Citadel and uses his powers to absorb the various soldiers and X-Men he encounters along the way. Deciding who lives, who dies, who gets teleported inside his head. There isn’t much to that, though. It’s all kind of laid bare right there. “Evil mutant runs amok playing god” is so ho hum. By that same token, it’s a little dull to say it’s the X-Men, as a group or as individuals. Cyclops taking up the role of Xavier, to a degree, puts himself in the position of the moral authority on the actions of mutants. He decides what is and is not acceptable. Meanwhile, Wolverine is the sort to maim and kill as he sees fit. When he dives from an airplane, claws popped and arms extended toward Warp Savant, what do we think his intention was? Like Warp Savant, that willingness to kill, to choose who lives and who dies, is a fairly basic definition of the concept. None of them truly live up to it.

You could go ‘meta’ and say that it’s Joe Casey. As writer, he decides everything about the comicbook. He writes the script that is then executed/interpreted by several other collaborators. None of the character decide that anyone lives or dies in their world... Casey does. There is no free will in fiction, it’s all determined by the writer, even if their method is one where the characters seem to ‘write themselves.’ Superhero comicbooks in shared universes for the big publishers provide an interesting case of this as there is no singular God, but a rotating, changing cast that ‘plays’ God in a sense, filling the role for a time until they no longer do. The title could be Casey’s recognition of his place within the creative hierarchy, an acknowledgement of his eventual ousting from this work-for-hire gig, supplanted eventually by Chuck Austen just as he supplanted Chris Claremont. This definition plays around with a bit of the metagames that Casey is playing in his run where the repetition of certain broad plot concepts represents his place in the long succession of creatives who preceded him – and will follow. Might as well called it “Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic” if that’s the case. A suitable possibility... or part of the answer?

Let’s return to Warp Savant... Yes, I already discounted him as the eponymous deity gamer due to the blasé nature of piggybacking off the lives/dies nature of his powers. I tend to prefer a definition of “playing God” that extends beyond the binary of alive and dead. That’s flipping a light switch, people, not acting as the creator of the universe. Except, that’s not exactly what Warp Savant’s powers do, is it? He doesn’t kill people. He doesn’t kill at all. He transports matter from one world to another. The inside of his head is an alternate reality of his own creation. He does not have total conscious control over it – or any control – and that does not matter. It is his world full of people and objects that he chooses to place inside it. He creates a landscape that may or may not change depending on his whims. And what makes up his little world? The esoterica, the random matter that he encounters. There is no purpose, no rhyme, no reason. It’s all whims and chance. A collection of information with a hint of curation. He takes from the world to make his world.

Earlier this month, I compared his powers to the accumulation of knowledge that comicbook fans have. The piles of continuity that create each personal head canon. That’s all Warp Savant is doing: head canon. He takes what he wants, ignores what he doesn’t. And the resulting world is far from perfect, patched together from the randomness. To paraphrase a literal genius, “His utopia is more of a Poptopia.”

And, at the end of the issue, he goes into that Poptopia himself, no one seems to care, no one notices, everything returns back to interpersonal soap opera because X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks. That’s all they are, you know?

the cruellest month 16

But, you know, let’s talk about those final two pages of Uncanny X-Men #394, because they’ve kinda been bugging me. To set the scene: his powers turned off, Warp Savant is badly hurt, Cyclops is pissed, Jean and Logan nearly die but show back up in the real world, and, as Wolverine is about to, presumably, kill (or maim severely) Warp Savant, the kid uses his powers on himself. This mostly gets a response of “Who the fuck cares?” and the issue quickly shifts the emphasis to Jean and Logan’s kiss inside Warp Savant’s head as everyone just goes home, job... done. There’s a jaded cynicism at play here that feeds into Joe Casey’s conception of the X-Men in the real world. This is a job that they take very seriously, but this is also some punk teenager who caused a messed and quit and who cares let’s go get some drinks boys.

Warp Savant’s assault on Cape Citadel is, seemingly, meaningful and important to him. This is the culmination of his life to this point. He’s finally an adult and has decided to make sure the world knows he exists and here come to X-Men to let him know that no one gives a shit. You fall in line or you get gone, they don’t actually care either way that much because they have much bigger concerns (image, press, kissing).

The inherent criticism of the X-Men here is that by growing to the scale that they have, they become insular and uncaring to anything outside of their walls. They only see Warp Savant’s actions as it relates to mutants, their purview, specifically how it plays from a public relations perspective. Cyclops begins the issue focused on how the media discusses mutants and what that means. Perhaps, the real battle is there...? But, there’s almost an element of autopilot in how they proceed. The reaction is automatic and swift, yet barely considered. The X-Men are a system, a machine that received stimuli and activates. Attack the evil mutant, engage interpersonal soap opera... X-Men comicbooks are about X-Men comicbooks... It's like there’s a flow chart at work. Is it a mutant (Y/N)? Is it a good mutant (Y/N)? Can the evil mutant be redeemed (Y/N)? Is the evil mutant threat over (Y/N)? Follow the chart, hit the end result: Y mutant, N good, N redeemed, Y threat over, result: return to base, mission accomplished, resume interpersonal soap opera.

Warp Savant is something is a non-entity to them beyond the actions he is immediately taking. He’s not actually a person. He’s a mutant, subclassified evil. The sinister undercurrent on display throughout the issue, in particular those finals pages, is unavoidable. It’s not a conscious decision by any of the characters to not care, it comes naturally to them under the guise of practicality and more important concerns. The idea that the ‘good guys’ don’t care about the death of someone that they are ostensibly charged with protecting, even from themselves, is a bit jarring.

As Casey was already in the midst of his Wildcats run, he had already begun to explore the idea of corporate superheroes and even a superhero corporation. That’s the mentality that he brings to the X-Men. It’s not the lovable mutant family good time comicbook that fans were accustomed to. It’s the workplace office drama. All monitoring press releases and managing situations and who doesn’t maintain a healthy work/life balance (hint: it’s Cyclops). Warp Savant is thrust into that world, making a definitive statement that he wants nothing to do with it. He attacks Cape Citadel partly to follow in Magneto’s footsteps, but also because it is the ultimate symbol of the western power structure. Post-childhood, there are generally four paths that may overlap: more school, get a job, join the military, or start a family. As Warp Savant attacks the idea of giving himself over the concept of patriarchal nationalism, he’s attacked by a group that’s come to inhabit the other three options all in one. School, family, career... you can have them all at Xavier’s!

More than that, the business of the X-Men is military in nature. What’s sent to ‘handle’ the Warp Savant situation isn’t so much a group of office drones as a special ops team. The shot of Archangel arriving on the scene looks like he could be part of some secret branch of the military that deals with superpowered threats, wielding a weapon that looks like military tech. By growing to encompass school family, work, military, the X-Men have also become an ideological cause bordering on a religion. A movement that demands complete fealty to the cause – a cause that eventually absorbs all criticism, all opposition. Am I saying that Casey prefigured Hickman? Forget Krakoa, join Poptopia.