Uncanny X-Men #6-10 – “Apocalypse Wars”
For the second part of the “Apocalypse Wars” trilogy, Uncanny X-Men has a problem. The idea of this event is past, present and future – one story dealing with each. Uncanny gets the present. But Apocalypse isn’t around in the present. That’s kind of the point of Evan, who may or may not be his reincarnation. So Cullen Bunn and Ken Lashley end up giving us an Apocalypse story without Apocalypse.
What we have instead is… well. There’s a lot going on in these five issues; there’s a lot of stuff trying to build to some kind of climax; there are changes of status quo for both Warren and Monet; and Fantomex and Mystique are drawn into contact with the rest of the cast. So it’s certainly trying to pay stuff off.
But.
In the main storyline, Magneto and Psylocke (and, unknown to her, Fantomex and Mystique) investigate a small town where a second Warren seems to have shown up as some sort of preacher. Naturally, it turns out that he’s actually under the control of a bunch of Apocalypse cultists led by the big guy’s easily forgotten son Genocide.
There’s also a B-plot, in which Monet and Sabretooth visit the latest incarnation of the Morlocks – now a mixture of humans and mutants, with the mutants hiding underground to get away from the Terrigen Mists. The mutants are dying of something else instead, which turns out to be Monet’s personal archenemy Emplate trying to lure her in as a food source.
What do these two stories have to do with one another? It’s hard to see. There’s no plot connection whatsoever. If there’s meant to be a thematic link, it’s at best obscure. This is not a promising start.
Genocide is nobody’s idea of a great character. What he brings to the table is the fact that he’s already established as the son of Apocalypse, and an endearingly over the top character design – a big see-through containment suit holding a burning skeleton. Beyond that, he’s precisely what you’d expect from the son of Apocalypse: a second-rate Apocalypse. Rick Remender got some mileage out of that in X-Force by playing Genocide as a bit of a loser desperately trying to convince people that he was Apocalypse’s legitimate heir. The name “Genocide” – which is simply dreadful – actually works when the idea is that the character is trying a bit too hard.
But here he’s played more or less straight, as an Apocalypse stand-in. Granted, it’s hard to imagine Cullen Bunn writing dialogue about “a world where the blood of the pitiful weak will rain from the sky in a torrent and murder-priests will make sacrifice of the unworthy” without tongue firmly in cheek, but the story still seems to want us to take him more or less at face value.
The plot appears to go something like this. At some point before the series began, Angel somehow got separated into two bodies – the drone Archangel from previous issues, and a purified human-looking Warren. Quite how or why that happened is not desperately clear but I suppose we’re meant to take it that the cultists had something to do with it. Genocide is keeping the easily-manipulated Warren around by offering to keep him pure by cutting out his wings as they try to grow back. Warren is repeatedly shown with bloody marks on his back through his clothing which, given that he’s also shown as a charismatic smalltown preacher, is presumably intended as some sort of stigmata imagery.
The extracted wings are apparently being implanted into other cultists, who are already deformed through prolonged exposure to Genocide’s radiation. I think. The dialogue strongly indicates that they’re meant to be distorted, but once the “Death-Flight” get released and start attacking everyone, they all just look exactly like Warren. Apparently Genocide needs the original Archangel drone to show up in order to activate his Death-Flight, though quite why is unclear. So his plan is apparently to scare Psylocke into summoning him. He doesn’t actually seem to have done anything to lure Psylocke in to start with, he’s just taking advantage of her showing up on his doorstep. (So what was his original plan?)
Psylocke, despite being unambiguously warned about this plan, summons Archangel anyway. Why? I have no idea, but the plot requires it, so she does it anyway. The Death-Flight then go off on a killing spree in the aforementioned small town (where everyone was apparently brainwashed in some way, in a plot thread that never really comes to anything), until the X-Men regroup to fight them. Finally, preacher Warren merges with drone Archangel (how?) to restore the complete Archangel personality, and the Death-Flight… I don’t know. Disappear or something? Get defeated ambiguously in one page?
This is a total mess. On a pure plot level, we’ve got a villainous scheme that makes no real sense, which is held up as some sort of potential end of the world scenario, and then appears to get beaten in a couple of pages. On a thematic level the story is obviously interested in religion – Angel and Apocalypse both have fairly heavy religious overtones to start with, there’s the whole thread about religious small town America – but without any real focus behind it all. The idea of Warren submitting to the physical removal of his unwanted mutant body parts is linked to Matthew 5:29 (“if thine eye offends thee” etc), but quite where that takes us is unclear, since there’s never any coherent sense of Warren as an actual believer in Clan Akkaba, or anything else very specific.
Magneto, we’re told, stumbled upon drone Archangel somewhere and was motivated to renew his fight for mutants by Archangel’s babbling about ensuring mutant survival, which turns out to have actually been babble about Apocalypse. There’s some attempt to suggest that he’s formed this team on the basis of what he saw as a sign from God, and which he now realises was a sham. That’s potentially interesting, I guess – and it’s consistent with the theme that Magneto sees himself as a great man waiting to play his role in history – but it’s fairly peripheral to the rest of the story.
Lashley is perfectly competent and a big step up from Greg Land – in fact, his Genocide is pretty solid – but as a story this is just a bunch of unresolved ideas hurled into a blender and fighting for space. And that’s before we even get on to M and Sabretooth, though by virtue of their story being infinitely simpler, it’s at least more coherent. Mind you, its main function is to set up a problem for M to deal with in future.
There are some decent character points scattered throughout this arc. Magneto’s realisation that he’s completely mis-read the situation has something, Psylocke is more concerned with trying to re-construct Warren than anything else, and Fantomex is completely sidetracked by wanting revenge on her for stuff that happened a while back in X-Force. The relationship between Monet and Sabretooth is starting to feel organic. All these are promising enough. But when it comes to the big picture, either this arc is going over my head, or it’s just chaotic.
> The plot appears to go something like this. At some point before the series began, Angel somehow got separated into two bodies – the drone Archangel from previous issues, and a purified human-looking Warren. Quite how or why that happened is not desperately clear but I suppose we’re meant to take it that the cultists had something to do with it.
I think this was going all the way back to the appearance of amnesiac Warren at the end of the interminable “Dark Angel Saga” in Uncanny X-Force. He was never exactly Warren reborn, he was some sort of split-off clone, while Archangel wasn’t destroyed and remade, but somehow sat around after that until Magneto found him post-Secret Wars.
You say it’s difficult to imagine Bunn writing such blood-and-thunder dialogue “without tongue firmly in cheek”, but my memory is that much of The Sixth Gun was comprised of exactly that sort of pronouncement. It does feel pretty much like his wheelhouse, from that perspective.
Just reading this summary gave me Chuck Austen flashbacks. Anyone else?
Sounds like shades of (shudder) The Draco and the one with exploding communion wafers.
It was nowhere near as bad as anything by Austen! I didn’t hate the story. The M/Emplate plot was quite good.
I think Bunn got stuck with an Apocalypse story remit, and wasn’t too thrilled by the prospect. Having to make something work in the present-day portion, when Apocalypse couldn’t actually be used.
Of course, what’s funny is that the last time we saw Apocalypse-proper in the present day (X-Men #186), he was still very much alive…
Regarding Genocide’s name, didn’t he start out as Holocaust and get renamed for sensitivity reasons (as though Genocide is much different)?
according to wikipedia, he’s named holocaust in age of apocalypse but genocide in the main continuity. sort of a changeling/morph thing.
I’m pretty sure when Genocide first appeared in the 616 time-line, he was still known as Holocaust, but then Marvel quietly changed his named to Genocide shortly after.
He first showed up in the 616 time-line in X-Men vol. 2, when he crashed in to Magneto’s base of Avalon.
I seem to remember him being called Holocaust at that point.
I think his name was considered too controversial, because it was associated solely with one particular genocide.
As far as Apocalypse, it was Remender’s first story-arc on Uncanny X-Force that set up the idea that Apocalypse was currently dead, so Bunn had to work with that continuity.
Otherwise, it ruins Evan’s story.
Ye gods. Poor Warren has been a freaking mess of a character ever since he became Archangel back in the 80’s, and it’s been even worse in later years. Can any writer truly fix him? Sigh.
This arc felt very much like trying to cash in on nostalgia for’90s characters/aesthetic but without some of the excesses. Probably the best use of Emplate ever. Shame the whole thing didn’t cohere.
Regarding the problems with the Angel story, if nothing else at least now it seems like the character is set up for future use. There hasn’t really been a writer who’s known what to do with the character since…well, Claremont probably. Since regaining his feathered wings the character has been a dead end (eg. healing powers, the relationship with Husk). The duality of the personas introduced in Kyle’s X-Force maybe had some mileage in it, but Remender’s Uncanny X-Force exhausted that story as far as I’m concerned, and no one’s known what to do with blank Angel since. At least we’ve gotten rid of that character.
Wasn’t Holocaust/Genocide briefly named “Nemesis,” as well?
He was Nemesis first, then when he gets all his flesh ripped off by Magneto he changes it to Holocaust.
Genocide is the 616 version of the character who has a different prrsonality. He was introduced in Uncanny X-Force.
> I’m pretty sure when Genocide first appeared in the 616 time-line, he was still known as Holocaust, but then Marvel quietly changed his named to Genocide shortly after.
He changed (back) to Nemesis for a while, not Genocide.
> As far as Apocalypse, it was Remender’s first story-arc on Uncanny X-Force that set up the idea that Apocalypse was currently dead, so Bunn had to work with that continuity.
Believed dead.
> Otherwise, it ruins Evan’s story.
Meh, he’s a clone. I don’t see how having the actual original is any different from the idea of the original.
“There hasn’t really been a writer who’s known what to do with the character since…well, Claremont probably.”
What did Claremont do with Angel that was worth reading about? I recall him filling in for Cyclops, being out of practice, strenuously objecting to Wolverine, and getting captured by the Morlocks. Never read any Angel story by Claremont or anyone else for that matter that actually piqued my interest in the character. He’s just a souvineer from X-Men #1 that nostalgists can’t look at objectively and admit has been crap all along. If he were created today, he’d be quickly dispensed with and forgotten about. Like Jay Guthrie.
To be fair, Rick Remender’s entire Uncanny X-Force run was an Apocalypse story without Apocalypse.
It’s not so much that he’s been crap all along, it’s just that the universe has outgrown his powers. When no-one can fly, his powers are cool. When half the team can fly AND do other things, they’re less so. It’s like Jay and Miles say on their podcast: every fight Angel was in for the entirety of the Claremont run just seemed to involve him dodging things.
The problem with Apocalypse being absent now because his clone turned good is that his resurrection in Blood of Apocalypse showed him to be unkillable in any permanent sense. So even ignoring the fact that BoA Apocalypse is still out there somewhere, his clan know there’s no need to clone him. And… did the X-Men or X-Force do something to prevent further clones? (I guess they must have in the first Uncanny X-Force arc? Can’t remember)
The grim & gritty nature of his transformation aside, changing him into Archangel did at least make him a more formidable opponent who could actually attack people. I realize there are people who prefer classic Angel due to the visual image of a blond white guy with wings, but the metal wings do make him much more useful in a fight.
As to whether or not Warren is salvageable, time will tell. As for this story…blech, it look like a mess, and one that I won’t feel too bad for skipping. But it does seem to set things up for future stories, so there is that.
“every fight Angel was in for the entirety of the Claremont run just seemed to involve him dodging things.”
Not true! He also helped evacuate people by airlifting them to a safer location 😉
And he occasionally flew too high and had to be rescued, like in the Savage Land or the Blue Area!
I actually like plain old Angel, though. It’s nice to have characters who can’t destroy the earth (and survive it) with their powers.
Probably the best role for Angel now is as a teacher… a supporting character
Fair enough, HR. I guess I was thinking of the Mutant Massacre. And the early X-Factor stuff with Caneron Hodge, but that was Layton and Simonson, eh? the tension between being rich but unable to fix himself was enough mileage for one story. After that it got dull. I think it’s right that he’s kept around simply for nostalgia for the original 5. Even young angel in All-New had to be powered up. And that character is a snooze too. Not sure playing him off Wolverine/Laura is such an interesting direction. They should have just let Warren and Paige retire off panel and left it at that.
“When no-one can fly, his powers are cool.”
When no-one can fly, Warren is a dull character with cool powers. You can’t slap a pair of big wings onto just anyone and hold my attention. And giving him razor wings just makes him a very formidable dull guy, IMO.
The problem is mostly with Warren himself. I can enjoy characters with either crap powers or no powers when there’s something else to him/her that I can latch onto. Warren is the worst of both worlds: lame powers (in the context of the Marvel Universe)+ uninteresting character (in the context of fiction in general). He has no interesting quality to speak of. Never has. Nothing in his personality. Nothing in his background. Nothing in his modus operandi. Nothing in his personal circumstances. Nothing of interest whatsoever. The Angel name and schtick is completely wasted on Warren.
Not an x book, but i liked Angel in the Defenders. Admittedly, not read those in a while.
I was a fan of Angel from the Silver Age X-Men. He was my favourite member of the original team.
He had some good stories in Champions, Defenders, and early X-Factor.
I wouldn’t say Claremont did anything positive with the character, but he never cared much for the original X-Men, outside of Cyclops and Jean anyway.
The Genocide character: In the AoA he looked human and was named Nemesis in his origin story, and he was Holocaust in the “present day” AoA. He was still called Holocaust when he got to the 616, but later renamed Nemesis. That’s for sure. That said…
1) Was he originally meant to be Tyler, aka Genesis, Apocalypse’s son? They looked rather similar when Nemesis still had skin. Because I thought Tyler was Cable’s biological son, and there’s no version of this that would have been possible in the AoA.
2) Is Genocide the 616 version of Holocaust? Because Holocaust came to the 616 and I don’t remember him ever dying.
It’s unusually confusing.
I’m thinking really hard to remember a time where there are ZERO creatively successful, artistically strong, and/or narratively compelling X-Men team books. Remender’s Uncanny X-Force(and its sequel Uncanny Avengers) was dope more times than not. There was Gillen Uncanny X-Men and Aaron had some great artists on WATXM before that. Generation Hope and PAD’s X-Factor were good. Ultimate X-Men was another universe but when BKV was on it there were the best X-Men team book around. Whedon/Cassaday Astonishing was sporadically released but it was very good. Morrison New X-Men and Milligan X-Statix before that.
I honestly believe the X-Men team books are their creative low point for the current century. They are the 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers, a once great franchise with no direction or star players, and no reason to keep paying money for them.
It might actually be the line being so small now. Even though the extension of the X-line to ludicrous proportions brought along a lot of very poor quality work, it also gave room for those below-the-radar hits.
Like, back when Peter David was on X-Factor or Warren Ellis was on X-Factor. A lot of the horribly bloated X-line was average to poor, but those two books were very high quality.
Now, there are just the core X-Men books left, and while it does away with the truly awful rubbish that crept in to the line over the years (well, it depends how you felt about all the Bendis, I guess), it also seems to have done away with the more creative books, leaving just the average.
*Warren Ellis on Excalibur, I meant. Whoops!
All-New Wolverine is the stand-out of the line at the moment, I’d say.
Jeremy, who’s the Kobe Bryant in this situation?
IMO, the X-Men concept would be served much better creatively if it was pulled out of the MU sandbox and relocated into it’s own universe. The X-Men (the concept) just doesn’t want to be in the Marvel Universe and you can see evidence of that going back years. That’s why we get so much alternate reality/timeline stuff. The creators can’t do all that can be done with the concept in the MU proper. That’s why the ’90s put me off. All of that “Oh no! We’re headed towards Days of Future Past!” is pointless when readers know it can’t happen because it would #$*@ up the other Marvel books. At least in a separate universe, a creator could tease that scenario, or a similar one, and it would be a very real possibility. Which is not to say they’d be obliged to go through with it, but at least it wouldn’t be an empty threat.
In fact, they wouldn’t even need to separate the X-Men from the rest of the line in order to do something like that. They could just have one book that chronicles another version of the X-Men. Like another Ultimate X-Men series in a universe that only has the X-Men. No Spider-Man, Avengers, etc.
That’s a book I could see myself getting into. Just have a book called “Astounding X-Men” or whatever, featuring a simple, straight-forward reboot of the concept with a cast of six or seven characters or so to start and let the book and it’s creative team cut loose.
@odessasteps: I agree. Warren showed a lot of leadership potential in the New Defenders. It was a weird, messy book, but I remember it very fondly. I think getting Iceman, Beast, and Angel away from the rest of the mutants did the characters a lot of good. They weren’t always being outshone by flashier teammates.
Warren is actually my favorite of the X-Men and one of my favorite comic characters. I’m surprised by the lack of support here but everyone has their favorites and least favorites. I like that he’s someone who wants to be a hero despite all the awful things that have happened to him (uncle killed his parents, loss of wings, childhood best friend killed his girlfriend and tried to kill him, Apocalypse’s manipulation…). Of the original five X-Men, he’s the only one who upon discovering his powers set out to help people by becoming a hero. When he’s left the X-Men, he’s gone and joined or founded other teams (Defenders, Champions, X-Factor, Uncanny X-Force). But rarely does anyone use him to his potential.
I was hoping this series would make use of him and thought I would stick through the first arc to see what Bunn would do, and he didn’t do much. Then when the next arc was going to be about Apocalypse, I thought this would be where Bunn would really use him. But this was just a mess for the reasons Paul mentioned. There was so much action, that no single event could be explored or understood. I’m dropping the book at this point.
“Of the original five X-Men, he’s the only one who upon discovering his powers set out to help people by becoming a hero. When he’s left the X-Men, he’s gone and joined or founded other teams”
Okay, but playing devil’s advocate here, how does any of that serve him now? What does a writer do with that?
“Angel: The X-Man who didn’t need to be encouraged to become a superhero” isn’t even remotely interesting. Spider-Man is widely-regarded as the gold standard for superheroes– despite the fact that the first thing he did with his powers was attempt to profit from them. And then he disregarded a robbery. So, almost the opposite of what Warren did.
He’s a lesson in power and responsibility. That’s a big chunk of what makes him work. Angel being a nice guy who tried to do good right away is admirable but it doesn’t make me want to read about him.
Off the top of my head, there are several stories that could come out of that: Warren wants to make a positive difference in the world and is a superhero, is that the best approach for someone with his wealth/status? After everything that’s happened to Warren in his life, does he still want to be a better person? After all the transformations he’s gone through, is he still himself? Warren wanted to be a superhero and save people and fight crime, while there is overlap there with the X-Men’s mission statement, those don’t fully align and where do they conflict?
I still think the best thing to do with Warren would have been to depower him on M-Day. I mean, the two things that define the character are that he’s rich and he can fly. Take away his ability to fly and you force him into a situation where he has to find a different way to be a hero – and will likely overcompensate for the fact that he’s no longer an angel. His fortune puts him in a position where he has the resources to actually accomplish something. Say, by backing a splinter team of X-Men trying to reverse M-Day or Terragenesis or anything. Yes, it’s the old corporate superheroes shtick, but it’s something that would seem to work well for him.
@Adam
Those aren’t stories. Having a superhero contemplate whether or not he/she should remain a superhero isn’t a story. Unless the plan is to retire that character, then the answer “Yes, I should.” ought to be a forgone conclusion. So, yes, okay, I guess that’s technically a story, but it’s not a very interesting one.
Also, if you want to paint Warren as being more naturally heroic than the rest of the X-Men (which seems to be how you regard him) then having him ask himself “Do I want to be a better person?” isn’t going to get that point across. He shouldn’t even be asking this.
As far as your last suggestion is concerned, where does that go? Where’s the story? Warren either decides he should remain with the X-Men (in which case, there’s no story here) or he decides to go it solo (good luck with that series) or he decides to join the Avengers where he can go from being compared to the likes of Wolverine and Storm, to being compared to the likes of Iron Man and Thor and become another writer’s problem.
@Taibak
I like your idea. It puts Warren to better use, and it opens the door for the possible creation of a new, hopefully more interesting version of the Angel character.
Arguably, the corporate mutant millionaire role is being filled right now, by Sunspot and his AIM-affiliated team of Avengers–although they’re not really concerned with mutant issues. TBH, I kind of prefer Bobby in that role over Archangel; he brings a lot more in terms of personality.
Lol. Never even considered Roberto. Poor Warren. Even in just a corporate role there are more interesting characters around who could do the same job.
Talibak….
We had that “Warren loses his wings” story in the 1980s.
It was called “Fall of the Mutants” abs it resulted in Archangel
And then they dropped the razor wings years later. And then they made him Archangel again years later. And then they made him Angel again.
So what if they do the same thing to the same character more than once? Happens all the time. Jean must be pretty skilled at dying by now.
Anyway, the point of having Warren lose his wings the first time around was to transform/upgrade him. Taibak is suggesting they do the same thing for a completely different purpose (retire him from active superheroing). It’s not like telling the exact same story again.
Joe Casey did a story or 2 featuring Warren in the corporate mutant millionaire role, but after he left, nobody seemed to do anything with that idea.
Holocaust and Genocide are two different characters. Holocaust is from AoA, was called Nemesis before being maimed by Magneto, and crossed to 616 in X-men Prime. His first act after that was the destruction of Ávalon. Genocide is the 616 son of the first Pestilence and Apocalypse, as explained in X-Force, where he first showed up. They are like Nate Grey & Cable.
Chuck Austen had a few stories based around the idea, didn’t he? I think it was something along the lines that Warren was so rich that he didn’t remember that he owned the company that a bunch of wolfish baddies belonged to. Given Austen’s rep, that may be why the plot point was quietly dropped.
There are no bad characters, only bad writers.
I think this Angel hate is uncanny–nay, astonishing–nay, extraoridnary!–given The Dark Angel Saga is only a few years old. Was it a little derivative? Not relative to the medium, really. It was a fun, cohesive, well told tale: made all the more special as that’s such a rarity in the modern era.
There’s no reason why Bunn couldn’t make a good Angel story work given the Apocalypse remit. Same goes for Hopeless and Lemire. All three books stink to high heaven and are quite embarrassing for the creators and Marvel. The xbooks have felled greater talent before, though.
Suffice it to say, I agree with Jeremy. This is the creative nadir for the xbooks. Even during the runs of Bendis, Brubaker, Fraction, and Austen, the line featured a quality book or two. Not now. I don’t count All New Wolverine as it’s just a solo Wolverine book. I do like it okay, but it could just be the dandelion on the dunghill.
If Marvel gave a shit they would offer BKV or Remender bags of money to steer the flagship. But I don’t think Disney’s Marvel Studios Inc., LLC cares about storytelling anymore. Not in the comics. They just put out these books hoping a scene or two will capture the attention of the non-comics reading blogosphere to keep their properties alive enough to be exploited on the big screen and in the big box stores.
Marvel Comics: The R&D House of Ideas for Marvel Studios.
If they didn’t bother putting out some nice collections of older material, I would think they actively hated comics fans.
@Leirus: Thanks for the clarification. That sounds familiar. Still an extremely stupid and confusing situation. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the result of miscommunication and rewrites, like how we ended up with two different Lady Masterminds.
@Arndt
HR is right: I’m saying *don’t* give Warren his wings back, period. Let him use his fortune to back a superhero team, pour money into an R&D firm led by the Beast, anything other than let him fly again. He’s still rich, he’s still good looking, but losing his wings should result in a massive blow to his self-image. Let’s see what happens when he has to overcome that. My gut is that he’d overcompensate.
@Person of Con
You assume Warren and Roberto would have the same agenda. 🙂
I think there’s real scope for a post-X mutant team. Angel wanting to lead a proper superhero team – his old flame Dazzler (A-Force had been a major disappointment after the Secret Wars version), Rogue (Uncanny Avengers is really bad) and some of the cold storage characters.
“I think this Angel hate is uncanny–nay, astonishing–nay, extraoridnary!–given The Dark Angel Saga is only a few years old.”
Out of curiousity, why “given?” What does that particular story have to do with whether or not Warren is crap?
I dropped comics more than a few years ago, so I never personally read it. However, I have read all of the core X-Men books published from 1963 up until roughly 2006. As well as Champions (ugh), New Defenders, and X-Factor. That’s practically every story that Warren appeared in across 40+ years. I’m reasonably familiar with him.
So, unless this Dark Angel somehow managed to do for Warren what Peter David did for Quicksilver (though judging by the comments, I tend to doubt it) then I don’t understand the point of mentioning it. Does it offer up fascinating new insight into Warren’s character that might alter my perception of him without fundamentally changing him? Because if so, I’ll definitely read it. Although I dislike Warren, I’m not unflinchingly determined to hold that opinion. Peter David got me to reverse my long-held opinions of both Quicksilver and Monet. It fascinates me when a writer can actually do that. Make me go “Ohhhh! Now I *get* (insert name of character)”
Anything like that in this Dark Angel Saga?