They're FORCE beams! Or, how to screw up Cyclops

I've been cruising my way through Essential Captain America volume 4 and I finally reached the climax of the "Secret Empire" storyline. But boy -- did Cap #173 ever screw up! First, check out the cover:

Look at Cyclops there over on the left. First, why is he seemingly lifting his visor up to fire his optic beams? Second, why is his beam melting that SHIELD agent's gun? Gil Kane -- I'm calling you OUT!! ;-)


But that's not the end of it. Inside the issue, we see Cyke do this:

Starting a forest fire -- by shooting his eye beams!! COME ON!! Looks like a few folks (um, Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema) forgot this little nugget from X-Men #43, a small special segment dealing with the X-Men's powers and origins:

This issue was from 1968, so there's no excuse for the creators of Cap #173, which was published in 1974, not to know this important info about the X-Men's field leader!

Who'da thunk it?

(I'm continuing some "reprints" of past comics-related posts from my politics blog as I plan on eventually deleting that category from the site ...)

Who would have thought this, huh? Check out this advertisement from Avengers #165 from 1977:

Yep, that's an ad for the "All-New" X-Men. "All-new" because in order to boost sales (yes, you read that right) in the mid-70s, writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum revised the original line-up of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's merry mutants that launched in 1963. Included in that line-up was a dude named ... Wolverine. Heard of him? ;-)

But that's only part of the story. Check out what is circled in red from above:




Indeed -- X-Men magazine used to come out once every two months!! Looking back from today this is an astonishing bit of trivia. X-Men was actually almost canceled completely because of poor sales in the early 70s. The book was only comprised of reprints of earlier issues for most of that time period. Then, in 1975, Wein and Cockrum came out with Giant-Size X-Men #1 ...

... and about 20 years later the mutant characters were by far Marvel Comics' greatest creative asset. They pretty much remain so today, too. Wolverine may even be more popular than Marvel's "flagship" character of Spider-Man. There have been three "X-Men" movies, and the "Wolverine" flick.

By the way, if you're looking for a nice copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1, good luck. That, and make sure your bank account is well padded.

Tales of the DISPROPORTIONATE HEROES!

Yep, comics artists are people too, so yep -- they make mistakes like anyone else. Stan Lee, when he began the "No-Prize" decades ago, pretty much enabled fans to go looking for any sort of blunder they could find in Marvel's pages.

Today we have the cover to Uncanny X-Men #173. Paul Smith had just recently assumed art chores from stalwart X-artist Dave Cockrum, and this Wolverine-dominated cover is pretty darn cool ... except that new X-Man Rogue must have some fairly ... unique anatomy:

Where, precisely, is her right leg bending? At that angle, it'd have to going through her left leg -- at least partially. The way she's depicted, there's just no way for that right leg to be anywhere else! And if it's somehow neatly "wrapped" around her left leg, then Smith's [non-existent] next panel would have to be of Rogue falling smack on her face.

(Fairly brief) "Wolverine" review (spoilers!)

Just got back a little while ago (yesterday now, by the time I'm getting this post up) from seeing "Wolverine" (hope you don't me not using the unnecessarily long "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") and without going into an in-depth review, I'd like to add a few thoughts for your more in-the-know [Marvel] comics fan.

First, I'd give the movie a "B-," meaning it was simply good. The action is great as are the F/X, but the backstory is skimpy enough and has enough "WTFs" in it that it prevents anything more. The beginning is well done in that it, a la "Watchmen," shows in flashbacks Wolverine ("James" or "Jimmy," as brother Sabretooth calls him, as in James Howlett from "Origin") and Sabretooth from their beginnings as young boys (in the mid-1800s!!) through the 1970s. Wolvie and 'Tooth take part in every major conflict from the American Civil War through Vietnam. During 'Nam, William Stryker (from "X-Men 2" infamy) pops up to recruit the mutant brothers to his special task force. Wolvie doesn't much like the killing that goes on, so he ups and leaves after a few missions.

Ha.

Stryker and the force keep tabs on him during Wolvie's "normal" life as a lumberjack(!), eventually "inducing" him to come back through deception.

Here are some of the more notable "WTF" moments, big and small. Or, as my teaching colleague, good friend and comics aficionado Brent would say, "COME ON!! moments":

• Stryker and the doctors of the Weapon X program went to great pains to make sure Wolverine knew he'd be in utter agony during the Adamantium bonding process. Yet, the procedure didn't convey that agony to the degree you'd expect. I was expecting Jackman to be thrashing about uncontrollably and look like a guy on the verge of madness. Nothing even close to that was shown. COME ON!!
• My pal Brent caught this one: As Agent Zero and other Stryker hitmen are attempting to off Wolverine, Logan is finally victorious after smashing the helicopter they're all on. He crashes with the copter, and rolls several hundred feet along a gravel road. (Obviously, his new Adamantium bones and healing factor save him.) But -- his new leather coat appears brand-spankin' new in the very next scene ... after it should'a been torn to shreds from the recent battle!! COME ON!!
• How'd Wolverine lose his memory of all this? The movie "covers" this angle -- by having Stryker shoot two Adamantium bullets into Logan's skull! (A doctor informs Stryker that "his brain will heal," but Stryker then says "his memories won't.") OK, I'll buy that ... but Logan's healing powers won't close up two holes in his Adamantium skull!! He'd be walking around forever with these two bullet holes! Why didn't Jean Grey detect these in "X-Men" when she was checking Logan out in the medical lab? COME ON!!
• Stryker's lab was located at ... Three Mile Island? (Gambit implies to Logan that "that'd be the last place you'd expect to find such a facility" -- Stryker's -- so ...) But Gambit and Logan fly right over the place in a Cesna! Like, it's a nuclear power plant!! Even back in the 1970s (where the bulk of the movie occurs) there were regulations (and protections) about such actions due to terrorism/infiltration concerns. Yet there's Gambit and Logan flying right in ... COME ON!!
• Unless I missed something, Emma Frost -- whose skin can turn into diamond -- was housed in a ... steel cage?? She couldn't break out of that?? COME ON!! (By the way, when did she get such powers? I know this was established in the comics, but when did she move from a mentalist to diamond-hard skin?)
• How come Sabretooth didn't recognize Wolverine in "X-Men"?? Sure, Logan's memories are shot, but 'Tooth's?? COME ON!!

Liev Schreiber ("The Manchurian Candidate"), who plays Sabretooth, is by far the best of the cast. His lust for blood and killing are aptly portrayed. And the chick who plays Logan's squeeze (Lynn Collins)? YOWSAH!!

It all began ...

... over thirty years ago. I got a hold of a coverless comic at the Boothwyn Farmer's Market (Iron Man #69) and I was immediately hooked. Who was this guy in a suit of armor? And the bad guy -- he had ten rings that fired ten different sorts of beams/weapons! (That was, of course, Iron Man's arch nemesis the Mandarin.) Best of all, though, was the overall tone of the editorial pages. They made you feel like a part of a common community: The Marvel "Bullpen," being a "True Believer," the "Mighty Marvel Marching Society" ... not to mention the cool little footnotes throughout the story with wisecracking comments ... all right up this pre-teen's alley!

Yep. And so it began. I was never a "hardcore" collector. I didn't put my growing collection in plastic with backing boards. I just liked to read 'em. Certain titles immediately appealed to me: Iron Man, of course; The Avengers, of whom Iron Man was a key figure; The Fantastic Four; Spider-Man; and The X-Men. Eventually, only the first two became long-term staples. Iron Man was an instant fave because of its hard science fiction aspect; The Avengers because of its constantly changing membership which kept the title "fresh." I built up a decent collection through high school and then college; I pretty much ceased purchases after college as marriage soon beckoned. During my second year of teaching (the early 1990s), my wife told me she wanted me to get rid of some of those boxes of comics I had lying around.

So, I did: I brought them in for some comics-happy students of mine to go through. Just like that my collection was cut by about a third. But one day, after about four years of marriage (still the early 1990s), I stopped into Captain Blue Hen. Oops. I began combing the Iron Man bin to catch up on what I'd been missing. "Ah, the hell with it!" I thought, and grabbed each and every Iron Man issue I needed to "catch up." It was around this time that the Internet was just beginning to blossom. Soon, a site called eBay would come into existence ... ... which I made use of to complete my Iron Man collection (sans issues of Tales of Suspense, in whose pages Iron Man graced for the first five years of his existence). To pay for the more expensive back-issues (like, um, Iron Man #1), I sold some of my more valuable issues of other Marvel titles -- especially The X-Men which by this time were wildly popular. My X-Men issues between #95 and #142 (no, I didn't have all the issues in this range) fetched me some coin!

I had begun to collect regularly again, but limited myself to Iron Man and The Avengers. I'd occasionally pick up some other titles -- The Squadron Supreme (Marvel's version of DC's Justice League) and The Ultimates (Marvel's "Ultimate" universe version of the Avengers) being two -- but that was it. By the mid-2000s, though, I had had enough. Marvel had begun to get "cross-over" crazy again, but most of all its writers had taken on a decidedly leftward tilt. (You can read my complaints about such instances here.) So, now I'll just appease myself with an occasional purchase of a Marvel Essential (black and white collections of a character's back issues) or a trade paperback (from any publisher).

And so it goes ...