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Sep 14

X-Men ’92

Posted on Monday, September 14, 2015 by Paul in x-axis

The X-Men’s contributions to Secret Wars rest heavily on straight sequels to old stories.  And given the nature of those old stories, that means the X-Battleworld is largely a case of “pick your dystopia”.  But there are a couple of exceptions, and X-Men ’92 is one.

The year is telling.  1992 was not especially a banner year for X-Men comics.  That would have been 1991, when X-Men and X-Force launched; by the following year, the big name artists were packing up and heading for Image.  But 1992 was the year when X-Men: The Animated Series began its five year run.

I paid virtually no attention to X:TAS.  If I remember rightly, it was broadcast in Britain as a feature on one of the Saturday morning kids magazine programmes, which meant it didn’t even have a specific time given in the listings.  Besides which, I was a student and I had better things to do on Saturday mornings than watch the junior version of the X-Men.  I saw enough of it to pick up that it was a relatively faithful adaptation with an especially stentorian Storm.  Still, in terms of the size of its audience, the animated series was presumably reaching more people than the actual comics (which tends to be the way of successful spin-offs).  So for a lot of people, the X-Men in the 90s will be more about the TV show than the comics.

Which means that there are two different 90s X-Men, and Chris Sims and Chad Bowers seem to have an eye on both.  A version of X-Force shows up here, for example, with Cable joined by a bunch of other high-profile 90s characters like Bishop and Psylocke who may not have actually been in the original X-Force, but were certainly too close to its spirit to fly as main characters in the animated series.

It’s certainly tongue in cheek, but the book mostly stops short of outright parody.  Storm’s dialogue certainly lends itself to the animated series’ booming tones, Cyclops gets lines like “I’ve nothing against having a little fun…”.  Artist Scott Koblish brings out the impracticably large guns and remarkably flowing hair.  But we’re in the territory of faithful homage rather than mockery; you could take this at face value.  While the digital versions were released as Infinite Comics, which nods in the direction of the animation, everyone’s also emulating the style of the 90s comics, and doing so pretty effectively.  Obviously the Infinite tricks don’t really fit into the 90s style so clearly, but there are some moments which make clever use of the fades and pull-outs, and they don’t break the vibe.

The domain of Westchester is apparently the remaining fragment of a world where the X-Men eventually defeated all their villains and are now popular heroes in a post-war world.  Robert Kelly is the local Baron.  The plot involves them investigating his Bureau of Super-Powers’ new Clear Mountain facility, which is ostensibly helping to reintegrate evil mutants into society.   Clear Mountain turns out to be run by Cassandra Nova, of all people, who actually has a weird plan to sanitise her patients, including the X-Men, to keep Westchester safe for the future.  Oh, and she’s going to murder Kelly and try to usurp the role of Baron.  Cue several issues of very 90s astral plane sequences as she tries – with only partial success – to brainwash the team into becoming her “New X-Men”.

Obviously, the joke here is that the Bureau of Super-Powers is actually a stand-in for Broadcasting Standards and Practices, those well-meaning nuisances.  Some of the astral plane scenes are very nicely done, and they lend themselves rather nicely to the Infinite visual tricks.  Her attempt to drain Gambit and Rogue’s relationship of sexual tension and make it about simpering (yet child-friendly) platonic love is a particularly good bit.

The book also makes better use of the Battleworld set-up than many of the “Warzone” books.  The “Warzone” titles, you may recall, are the ones set within a particular domain of Battleworld, without getting too worked up about what’s going on outside.   In practice, most of them seem to be What If…? stories with some Battleworld trappings bolted on and largely ignored.  And as we’ll see in some upcoming reviews, this doesn’t always work, especially when you raise the stakes in a way that feels like it ought to be worldwide; it’s as if, to read the stories as their creators intended, you have to mentally screen the Battleworld references out again and just take it as an alternate reality story.

X-Men ’92, by contrast, actually uses Battleworld even without straying beyond its domain.  Partly, it does that by having Cassandra express her ambitions in terms of spreading beyond her domain.  But it also plays with the idea that, as a powerful telepath, she can actually sense what’s going on in other domains.  She can tell most of the X-Men themed ones are hellholes, and she concludes that her X-Men need to be kept in line too.

While it’s a fun book that largely sustains the tone it was going for, it has ideas that seem to be pulling in opposite directions.  Cassandra Nova is plainly an odd choice for the villain in a 90s nostalgia book, given that she wasn’t created until 2001.  You’d think the idea would be to confront the 90s X-Men with something from a later incarnation of the franchise… except that she’s used mainly as a stand-in for Standards & Practices, which is only relevant because of the animated series, and has little or nothing to do with Cassandra herself.  (In fact, this version appears to be a female clone of Xavier corrupted by the Shadow King.)

But on the whole, it works.  It doesn’t quite manage to be more than the sum of its parts, but the parts themselves are pretty good.  It’s an affectionate throwback which does more than just recycle the obvious jokes about 90s comics, and winds up as one of the Secret Wars X-books’ more pleasurable nostalgia trips.

Bring on the comments

  1. Martin Smith says:

    X-Men aired on weekday mornings on Sky One in the UK. On Eggs, Bacon and Soldiers, I think it was called, the lame successor to DJ Kat.

  2. Paul says:

    I didn’t have Sky in those days, so it must have been on terrestrial TV somewhere, at least for the first season.

  3. kelvingreen says:

    I didn’t have Sky either. I think it may have been on BBC1; the other Marvel cartoons of the era were on that channel, as I recall.

  4. Thrills says:

    It showed up on Live and Kicking on saturday mornings eventually, aye, and I was super-psyched to watch it as it had been getting heavily advertised in Overkill and Exploits of Spider-man.

    I remember thinking it was ‘okay’. Preferred Spider-man.

    I’m hoping there’s some sort of collection of a bunch of these miniseries crammed together in a massive cheap tpb eventually, as some of them sound like dubious fun that plays to my worst nostalgic tendencies.

  5. Frodo-X says:

    Having grown up with the animated series, I was so excited for this mini. And then I read the first part and I thought they absolutely nailed the tone.

    But then they brought in Cassandra Nova and it killed the thing for me. I don’t like her, so having the entire mini suddenly revolve around her was a real bummer for me. While I admire how well it was done, tone-wise, I hated the story.

  6. ZZZ says:

    The discussion of the X-Men’s airing schedule in Britain reminds me of “Marvel Action Universe,” a short-lived animated block we had in the late 80s in the United States. It mostly showed Robocop and Dino-Riders cartoons – I guess Marvel had licensed books for those properties or something – but every once in a blue moon they’d show “Pryde of the X-Men,” the pilot for a 1980s X-Men animated series that never got picked up (if you ever played the old X-Men arcade game, it was based on that pilot). I remember turning on the TV every weekday morning before school to see if they were showing the X-Men episode again that day and almost always being disappointed.

  7. Martin Smith says:

    I saw Pryde of the X-Men when I was very young (I think it ended up the Children’s Channel, probably packed in with Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends) and remembered enough of it to be confused as to the why the Fox X-Men series (which really hits the ground running as far as establishing stuff goes) didn’t line up with it.

  8. Paul says:

    I’ve seen Pryde Of The X-Men at some point too, though I can’t for the life of me remember where. Possibly the same place I saw the Generation X pilot (which is quite something).

  9. ChrisV says:

    Yeah. The more I read of Secret Wars, the more problems arise. I was excited for the event at first.
    Then, the main series gets horribly delayed, to the point that they needed to add an extra month, and still, there are plenty of delays.
    Next, the tie-in mini-series all seem pretty pointless now. I expected they’d tie in to the main story-line in some way, but it’s obvious that they have zero effect on the larger plot-line of Secret Wars.
    Finally, worst of all, is that none of these books can have any meaningful resolutions. I finished the Future Imperfect mini-series, and it ended with what seems to be an element of continuity, about the state of the Maestro going forward. Except, we know that it’s all meaningless, because the entire Battleworld is going to be wiped out by the end of Secret Wars. So, there is absolutely zero point.

    The “Last Days” books are as much of a disappointment.
    First of all, we already know that Earth-616 ended, so there’s no real drama for the majority of the books. The heroes are not going to do anything to change the outcome.
    I was hoping to read some character pieces, about how the protagonists deal with the fact that their world is really going to die. Now, some of the books are going in this direction, but it’s been months since Secret Wars #1.
    Stories like Miss Marvel or Silver Surfer would have meant a great deal more hand they been running at the time when the Marvel Universe actually was about to die. We’re a month away from the launch of the “All-New, All-Different” Marvel Universe, and yet, there are still stories going in to October about events from before the end of Earth-616.

    I’ve just grown very burnt-out on the whole concept.

  10. Jerry Ray says:

    I said early on that this whole crossover seems to be the most egregiously fan-exploitative thing Marvel have ever done. No resolution to the regular books, which ended to make way for a pointless crossover to resolve a boring 80-part Avengers arc. The main series is unbearably slow and chatty, and the crossovers are mostly confusing and disjointed filler.

    Marvel should be getting railed for this disaster, but most of the (admittedly limited) commentary I’ve read on it seems generally positive. I don’t get it.

  11. Brendan says:

    I believe the Maestro will survive Battleworld and star in a new book post Secret Wars. Although the name of said book eludes me at present.

  12. JG says:

    Shouldn’t this be tagged under “x-axis”?

  13. Paul says:

    Yes, it should – sorted.

  14. Thrills says:

    I’m reading E is For Extinction and Ghost Racers, and just finding them enjoyable romps using characters I like, done with enthusiasm by the creative teams. I don’t really care if they have wider significance to the ongoing Marvel universe story, ‘cos I’ve not bought any Marvel ongoings for aaaaaages.

    I can understand why they’d seem inconsequential and frustrating to people invested in Secret Wars and the status of the Marvel U, though. And involving Cassandra Nova in a comic about the 90s X-Men does seem to render that series’ gimmick rather pointless…

  15. ZZZ says:

    I’m going to make a reference that will make perfect sense to old school Dungeons & Dragons players but will go right over the heads of anyone else: Secret Wars is Marvel Ravenloft.

    Ravenloft was a Dungeons & Dragons setting that was basically “horror anthology as setting.” The idea was that there was a dimension made of evil semi-sentient mists (“the demi-plane of dread”) that would occasionally poke out into other dimensions, swallow up particularly noteworthy evildoers, bring them home, and make little habitats for them based on twisted versions of their homeworld. So you had a bunch of domains, each based on either a common horror trope or one of the various published D&D campaign settings, ruled over by “Darklords,” each based on an iconic horror or fantasy figure. So, for instance, you had a Transylvania-like kingdom ruled over by a Dracula-like vampire, and if you rode south long enough you’d end up in a high fantasy land ruled over by a Sauron-like undead knight, etc. You had a land of sand and pyramids ruled by a mummy, a Renaissance Italy analogue ruled by analogues of the Borgias, and so forth.

    In other words, exactly like Battleworld, but substituting “Darklord” for “Baron” and Dungeons & Dragons campaign worlds and iconic fantasy/horror settings for Marvel events and alternate timelines, and assembled by nebulous otherworldly forces instead of Dr. Doom. Ravenloft even had the weird dynamic where the residents of some of the domains knew all about the other domains and others didn’t know about anything past their own borders.

    And, like with Ravenloft, I’ve been assuming that the various lands of Battleworld aren’t actual pieces of the dimensions they’re based on or replications or continuations of the exact events of those dimensions, but just “habitats” for the various people Doom was able to save from the different worlds, constructed to resemble their homeworlds enough for the people to feel relatively comfortable and not question their status quo too much.

  16. Anya says:

    Ha, that does sound alike. Didn’t the writers dungeons and dragons logic in Axis, too? Guess a lot of marvel writers are d&d fans.

  17. To defend the creative team, I think the inclusion of Casandra Nova, a character that didn’t exist in the 90s, was a deliberate attempt on their part to choose a villain character who was somewhat outside of the 90s framework to offer metatextual critique. (And if you have to pick a well-known post-90s X-Men villain for such a role, who else is there? Sublime?)

    Granted, if that was what they were trying to do, I think they could have made that point a little better, and getting her possessed by the Shadow King just muddies the waters. Still, I really liked the conclusion, especially the scene where Wolverine gets his groove back.

  18. Nu-D. says:

    I was a student and I had better things to do on Saturday mornings than watch the junior version of the X-Men.

    Me too. Sleeping off hangovers.

  19. HR says:

    Hangovers, lol. I remember those. You know, you only get those when you stop drinking. But if you keep yourself just slightly pickled at all times, your life is golden.

  20. Dazzler says:

    HR that sounds like problem drinking. I hope you’re okay.

  21. Hellsau says:

    HR went from drinking to comic books. Life is a series of problems.

  22. The original Matt says:

    I really enjoyed theHickman Avengers books, and was excited leading into this event. It’s taking too long and momentum is dead. Some of the tie ins have been fun.

  23. @The original Matt: That’s a good point. The Avengers run worked much better because through Avengers and New Avengers, we got two installments (at least) per month that were looking at the same story through different angles or parts, even if they were sometimes featuring entirely different groups of characters. In comparison,

    The Battleworld premise is a reasonably good one for creating a field that allows different types of stories, which is pretty necessary for a line-wide crossover; Marvel seems to have learned one lesson at least from Secret Invasion’s very repetitive Secret Invasion. But I wonder if they went too far in that direction–by making each story self-contained to the point where nothing seems to infringe much on each other or the main story, we might not get enough of that main story to stay invested. The second issue hinted at constant ebbs and flows of political maneuverings Magistrates; maybe a secondary series showing that instead of the relative isolation of all the other series would have helped the flow.

    (It seemed like the Marvel vs Ultimates Bendis story might have been more connected to the main series at one point; that it failed to connect is probably part of the backlash against it, in addition to it being generally not written very well.)

  24. That’s what I get for jumping around in a post with multiple points. Last sentence of the first paragraph should read “In comparison to that, Secret Wars is moving at a snail’s pace.”

  25. ASV says:

    I don’t think it lands in a way that really makes sense, but Nova’s definitely there for a metatextual comparison with the Morrison run. She pointedly refers to her brainwashed crew as the “New X-Men,” and their costumes bear the same distinctive torso “X” from Quitely designs.

  26. Loz says:

    The whole Secret Wars spin-offs are more Elseworlds based on ‘What Ifs’ rather than straight ‘What Ifs’, but it’s interesting that the X-Men ones are all (with the exception of ’92) based on events like ‘Inferno’ or ‘X-Tinction Agenda’ whereas most of the other titles tend to be just vague twists on ideas, like an all-female Avengers team, or Captain America as some sort of barbarian adventurer in a world of Hulks. Garth Ennis’s title is a bit of a guilty pleasure but does appear to be something that’s been lying round the Marvel officers for a while looking for an opportunity to publish it as it doesn’t really fit into the loose conglomeration of titles that make up the Battleworld crossovers to start with.

  27. Dave says:

    In the right thread this time…

    “And if you have to pick a well-known post-90s X-Men villain for such a role, who else is there?”

    While not post-90s, Exodus? I don’t remember him being in the Acolytes episodes.
    Stryfe? Vulcan? Bastion?

  28. While they weren’t in the cartoon, with the exception of Vulcan, they’re all 90s villains, albeit villains that went on to do their schtick well after the 90s as well. But Vulcan would have been interesting–although he’s got a whole other set of baggage. And Stryfe would have been a great “90s personified” choice.

    Incidentally, Bastion and Exodus do both make an appearance in the series elsewhere, if anyone’s hankering for their presence.

  29. errant says:

    “The whole Secret Wars spin-offs are more Elseworlds based on ‘What Ifs’ rather than straight ‘What Ifs’, but it’s interesting that the X-Men ones are all (with the exception of ’92) based on events like ‘Inferno’ or ‘X-Tinction Agenda’ whereas most of the other titles tend to be just vague twists on ideas, like an all-female Avengers team, or Captain America as some sort of barbarian adventurer in a world of Hulks.”

    Because the X-Men actually have a plethora of iconic storylines to riff on. Not that some of the others don’t have a few, but….

  30. Chris says:

    I like the Captain America poison streets story.

    And Acts of Vengence was frikkin sweet

  31. Chris says:

    Poison Streets and Vengeance Acts

  32. Jerry RAy says:

    So apparently X-Men ’92 is returning as an ongoing series in 2016. Ugh.

  33. Karl says:

    The transition between issues 4 and 5 (“Professor X is dead!” / “Wait — Professor X is alive!”) has got to be a riff on the “Cyclops is dead/alive” bit in the Hellfire Club story between issues 133 and 134.

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