X-Men ’92 #1-4 – “World is a Vampire”
X-Men ’92 was one of the X-books’ more unusual contributions to Secret Wars, and not one that you’d naturally expect to continue beyond it. Being an out-of-continuity title, it doesn’t really fall within my remit for the X-Axis, but I figured I’d give it an opening arc anyway.
Now, I pretty much enjoyed the Secret Wars tie-in. While the rest of the X-Men’s “greatest hits” parade consisted of assorted variations on dystopia, it was looking back to the 1992 animated series. Instead of doing a straight copy or a parody, Chris Sims and Chad Bowers went for more of a tongue in cheek homage, blending in elements from the rather different 90s comics for a broader take on the X-Men of the time. And the decision to do it as an Infinite book was a neat way of echoing the animated roots.
Less obvious was the thinking behind giving a major role to Cassandra Nova, who wasn’t from the 90s at all. And unfortunately, that’s the trend which seems to predominate in this ongoing series, which is a baffling mash-up of Marvel Universe plot elements from all over the place, some of which are not particularly related to the X-Men or to the early nineties, let alone both.
Picking up where the Secret Wars miniseries left off, the X-Men have opened up their school to actual pupils. The student cast is made up of members of Generation X (which makes sense) and teenage versions of the members of X-Statix (which is a bit random). Maverick shows up at the Mansion fleeing from the Russian super-team, the People’s Protectorate. Meanwhile, the Upstarts’ competition – you remember, rich kids killing mutants for points – is just getting under way, and Fenris try to recruit a locked-away Soviet agent called Alpha Red who eventually turns out to be this world’s version of Janus, the son of Dracula, and who shows up to bite Jubilee before going on to turn the Protectorate and a whole bunch of students. It turns out that Maverick has stolen a computer disc with the Russian government’s copy of the Darkhold, which is the key to defeating the vampires. The X-Men recruit Dracula to help fight back, and he reveals that the vampires turned by Janus will burn out and die quickly. There’s a big showdown. Eventually Dead Girl, of all people, goes into 90s virtual reality to interact with the Darkhold, and uses the Montesi Formula to turn all vampires back into humans, except for Janus who dies.
Now, in plot terms, this all certainly hangs together, and it’s actually pretty well constructed as a dense action story. But unlike the first mini, it feels very much a Frankenstein patchwork of scattered concepts drawn from all over Marvel history, with no particular rhyme or reason. You’ve got X-Statix from the outer reaches of the early 2000s X-books. You’ve got the People’s Protectorate from Captain America or Avengers or wherever it was they came from. You’ve got a callback to Jubilee being turned into a vampire in a relatively recent X-Men story. You’ve got a callback to a Storm/Dracula story from the 80s. You’ve got Janus from Tomb of Dracula in the late 1970s. And as a climax, you’ve got a callback to the Montesi Formula being used to purge the Marvel Universe of vampires in Dr Strange #62, published in 1983.
X-Men ’92?
There are some cute moments – plenty, in fact – and it’s quite well done on that level. A passing mention of the Council of Cross-Time Draculas is gloriously absurd. The idea of revisiting the Upstarts, who seem to be a longer-term storyline, is quite good, since that’s squarely within the book’s remit and it was a high-profile story that never came to much and could have been done vastly better. If you’re going to revisit early 90s X-Men, that’s a good bit to work around. And Alti Firmansyah isn’t Scott Koblish, but her storytelling is clear enough, she does a good vampire Jubilee, and she fits the notional animated vibe. And yes, it all barrels along happily enough, and it’s a lot better constructed than many books I’ve read lately.
But even allowing for the fact that the book doesn’t expect to be taken terribly seriously, the bombardment of references kind of overwhelms it. There are really two problems here. One is that it overshadows the core idea. The book is called X-Men ’92, after all, and it’s decreasingly recognisable as such. Perhaps the idea was to avoid a straight cover of the 90s by bringing the X-Men into contact with elements from other books and other periods. Fair enough, but for that sort of clash to work, you still need to hold on to the core identity of the book, so that it can play off the other stuff. Here, it gets overwhelmed in a tidal wave of unspoken footnotes. Maybe it was a mis-step to launch the regular series with a riff on something as peripheral to the X-Men as Marvel’s vampire mythology.
The other problem is that while the story might technically work, it’s a bit weightless, because it’s hard to shake the feeling of a parlour game where people pick fifteen concepts at random from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and see if they can construct a plot around them. The answer to that question is “yes, they can”, but it doesn’t feel like a story that’s really about anything in particular, even on the pretty flippant level that the book is aiming for. The epilogue, with everyone feeling a bit nervous about the implications of resorting to black magic, does actually work, and with a little more focus this could work a lot better.
This feels like a book that needs to calm down a bit and regain the focus it had in the Secret Wars arc. It’s still quite good fun moment to moment, but it’s less than the sum of its parts.
This book really did kinda unravel after Secret Wars; I was surprised they kept it going, but I thought it would fit in line with Avengers Assemble or other pseudo-noncontinuity books.
That said, while it’s playing on the Jim Lee/Claremont run, I thought that the title was supposed to be a direct reference to the X-Men animated series that started in 1992, and to be running with those characters. At least, that’s what I remember the press saying.
I feel like my problems with this book are exactly the same problems I had with Claremont’s X-Men Forever, which is that it’s fundamentally impossible to make one of these throwback stories and pitch it to more than a nostalgic audience. Pulling in everything from everywhere is a fun way to continuity check, but it never ends up being more than merely an exercise in storytelling. It’ll be interesting to see how much longer X-Men 92 runs.
Admittedly, I’m enjoying this vampire story arc more than I did the one from X-Men #1-6 in 2010. I find it interesting to see where this series ends up next. And I’m enjoying this series more than I am Extraordinary X-Men, which is supposed to be the flagship title.
While I haven’t read this comic, I remember that the 90’s cartoon happily adapted comic story lines from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. I’m pretty sure the only reason they never did Storm vs Dracula, for instance, is the trouble the Spider-Man cartoon had trying to use Morbius because blood sucking is hard to work into kids cartoons.
I don’t see anything violating the spirit of the cartoon by bringing in elements from outside the early 90’s. They even did the Phalanx Covenant and a very loose take on Age of Apocalypse, so I could easily believe the Generation X and X-Statix characters would’ve shown up at some point if the show had kept on going indefinitely.
In all fairness, the ’90s cartoon wasn’t really a 1:1 adaptation of the ’90s comics either. It was a lot of the ’70s and ’80s stories filtered through the ’90s aesthetic and swapping out Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Kitty for Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee. They’d have probably gotten around to Dracula if broadcast S&P allowed it.
…Not really sure what the X-Statix are doing there, though.
It was too bad it didn’t stay closer to the Claremont/Lee formula that the first issue seemed to be going.
I was looking forward to seeing Claremont’s concept of mutants being used as “merchandise” by world governments and wealthy interests.
It started out going in that direction, and then turned in to lots of random references from different points in Marvel history.
I enjoyed seeing Janus used again, as I am a big fan of Marvel continuity. Yet, vampires certainly aren’t my favourite trope to be used with the X-Men.
The fact that it turned in to an homage for that classic Roger Stern story-arc didn’t help.
It’s still a decently fun book, but I was very excited at the prospect of visiting a possibility of what X-Men might have looked like in 1992 had Claremont stayed as writer.
“[i]But even allowing for the fact that the book doesn’t expect to be taken terribly seriously, the bombardment of references kind of overwhelms it.[/i]”
That’s pretty much what the animated series was though. Sure there was a core group and they’d fight Magneto or the Dark Riders or someone, but then in the next episode Iceman would show up, drop a bit of random backstory, and lead to a fight with X-Factor. Or Alpha Flight would show up. Or you’d get Something Very Big Happening that was epic enough to be seen from London – and Captain Britain would be in the background.
The chronology may be out there, but random appearances from X-Statix, Jubilee being turned into a vampire, and Dracula kinda fits that aesthetic.
Dangit. Pretend I know how to use tags.
Paul – artist Alti Firmansyah is a woman, not a he 🙂
Fixed – thanks.
I thought Sims and Bowers were pretty straightforward before the Secret Wars mini started, saying they had allowed themselves to use post-92 characters but had to use the ‘trading card version’–if a TV writer only had a few sentences to go on, how would they adapt a concept to the screen? It’s certainly an apt description of their take on Cassandra.
Sad to hear that this doesn’t hold up as well as the SW mini, which I really liked. I’ve been waiting for it to land on Unlimited since it’s no longer going to use guided-view gimmicks (and MU has since upgraded to the point that that’s no longer a big strike against it).
I was really excited about this, as a big fan of the old cartoon. What a disappointment. First the miniseries decided to use Nova, one of my least favorite villains ever, stretched across the whole thing, so I didn’t like most of it. I did like the way they seemed to capture the feel, so I figured I’d give the ongoing a shot when it was announced, to give them another go, and this is what I got. Took all of two issues to give up on the whole thing.
If they were actually fulfilling the promise of the premise, I’d’ve been buying this book from the start. Once I heard about Cassandra Nova it was over, and apparently they’ve stuck with the trend. No idea who this book is for.
I bought issues one and two of this title, but dropped it. I read the Secret Wars issues, but I felt the ongoing title keep getting too slapsticky. I was hoping the humor would be more nuanced. I went in with an open mind but realized this was not what I wanted.
Having just finished up issue 4, I have to say I’m disappointed. A vampire story isn’t really the best way to start the series. Introduce the new mutant students, make us care about them and then give us a reason to worry. I could understand if these were perhaps issues 8-12 and I think that might worked better. I will say that the art is very nice and in keeping with the 90’s era. Can’t recommend it so far though. C+ for me.
I love the cartoon and everything so you’d think I’d love this. Nope! This is nothing like the show. Surprised to see some say otherwise. This had cameos and so did TAS, so they’re similar? No.
This is like a bad fanfic “comedy” sadly. Huge misfire.
And as much as I’d love to see the X-Statix cast used more, they really don’t fit this book whatsoever.
Another opportunity to tell better 90s X-Men stories gone. Shame. Especially because it looks like the writer could, with severe editing or self-discipline, tell a coherent and fun story. He definitely knows his stuff.