When I look at Chamber, I see Luke Perry for some reason. And Dylan McKay. Not the character, the type, the persona, the feeling of that poet in a leather jacket, dangerous to be around, but oh so alluring. And someone everyone knows, someone kinda sorta famous but not movie star famous. Because he’s the poet in the leather jacket, dangerous to be around, but oh so alluring. Attractive and repulsive, a good worker, maybe self-destructive... useful. The sort that we look up to and down upon, built up to be torn down with minimal effort. Cultural utility being of importance. In the grand scheme of things, hatched eight to ten days for best effect, then discard, sucking the eggie dry before the next day’s breakfast. Luke Perry playing Kevin Federline...
But, he gets a seat at the adult table because he’s useful. Not a ‘useless beauty’ as they say in the funny pages, he can actually do things. That’s how he makes his presence known, busting in, parting the waves, spreading the butter with his fiery chest and saving the damsel in distress and darting off into the night with only a dozen words ‘said’ so smoothly to hit your soul. He’s perfect and doesn’t know it, shy and confident and self-hating and brooding and able to make a girl feel safe and like she could get, ah, burned. He thinks his looks are a curse when they’re his raison d’être, his cosmic inheritance that puts him on the front page as the curious bad boy that everyone loves to hate and fear. His talents are natural and effortless, another in a long line... I wasn’t kidding when I said he’s another Scott Summer and Sam Guthrie, each moulded for their time, optimised for their target audience, the ultimate blank slates of relatability. Useful. Unfortunately, for him, he can’t blast out of his eyes or his ass, because those are taken... and ol’ Slim is already Batman so he’s part of the infinite parade of Robins who are too old to be sidekicks but not grown up to be solo heroes so they get slotted in wherever. That weird space between high school and getting a proper job. It’s fair to call Chamber’s time with the X-Men courtesy of Joe Casey more of an internship than a fulltime gig.
It’s not like he has two heads or one giant eye or a bunch of fur or extra long arms or lives in the sewers. He gives up moving to a Mansion to slum it in dirty hotels and limos with popstars, after all. There’s privilege in utility that is often obscured by heavy-handed self-pity. Say what you will but Captain America looks like he works at it and, for a rich kid, Tony Stark sure spends a lot of time in the workshop building things, and Hawkeye is just a dork who spent too much time getting really good at one thing like every athlete we worship. Despite the best insistences of comicbook writers and fans, mutants aren’t hated because they’re black or gay or any other metaphor, it’s because they got it without any effort. Where’s the work? Where’s the purpose? Where’s the dead parents and the decade of training? They hit the genetic jackpot and get to be beautiful superheroes without having to try. Every story about the curse of being a mutant, how freakish and ugly and awful it is always has the same moral: it’s fucking great. There but for the grace of God... is the message of Uncanny X-Men #395. Those poor souls living in the sewers, forced to be clever because they’re not beautiful? No, forced to scrap by because they’re useless. What are mutants for? If you look at the X-Men and their various offshoots and spinoffs and villains, it’s to do many impressive actions while looking good. There’s an inherently conservatism in the concept. Despite efforts of inclusion with the likes of Beak, that never sticks. No, the useless mutants get shunted to the sewer and made fodder for handsome men with jobs like Mister Clean, the genetic cleanser. He may look like an action star but he’s just a man doing a good, honest job, not-so-secretly wishing that it was the famous sort of mutants he was killing, the ones who can do the things he wishes he could. He’s a bit of a cut rate Pyro here, isn’t he? And, later, it’s revealed that he’s been made tougher and stronger through great expense as if Piotr didn’t just wake up one day a metal hunk who can bench-press a tractor. Hated and feared? Resented and envied, for a purpose.
