… 5, 4, 3 …

I should really be going to bed, but why not round out the day with yet more comic reviews, this time of the three most recent issues of Marvel’s “The 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time.”

As of #5, they are doing a single issue per issue, so to speak, which is kind of cheesy, especially given this particular triplet.

• 5) X-Men #1 (10/91) “Rubicon” – The second X-Men title debuted with Chris Claremont and Jim Lee at the helm. Claremont is certainly true to his rep, introducing eleventy-dozen characters, setting up Magneto as Numero Uno (Albeit Tortured but Well-Meaning) Bad-Guy, and juggling an overly large X-cast that has to be split up into two teams (twice). Jim Lee’s art was getting progressively more and more Image-like (he left after #11 to help found that company), and while there are some nice Byrne/A.Adams riffs, it’s still an early-90s muddle of cheesecake and cross-hatching. Incredible cover art of Magneto, though, looking every bit the Master of Magnetism. Claremont, for his part, didn’t even last as long as Lee; he got pulled from the title after #3, ending his 17-year X-reign. [Writing/Art: B/B+]
• 4) Giant-Sized X-Men #1 (5/75) “Second Genesis” – This was the blockbuster that actually introduced the New X-Men (after the old team had been relegated to reprints and occasional guest appearances). Though the early New X-Men are usually associated with Claremont and Byrne, this first issue was a Len Wein/Dave Cockrum extravaganza. It’s fascinating seeing how a desire Marvel’s president to get an international super-hero team (with “guaranteed” global sales power) turned into the New X-Men — in the intervening decades the idea that the team was made up of a Canadian (Wolverine), Russian (Colossus), African (Storm), Japanese (Sunfire), German (Nightcrawler), Native American (Thunderbird), Irishman (Banshee), and an Anglo (Cyclops) sort of lost its punch.

  I actually have a small digression here. In 1975, my family was vacationing at the Grand Canyon, and I managed to wangle an offer to buy a comic book at the general store there from my Mom. I had some beloved Neal Adams X-Men issues, and that the X-Man title I was seeing there was “Giant-Sized” meant I was getting all the better a bargain from my wangling. Which is why I actually have (in mediocre shape) this issue in its original — in good shape, slabbed, it would probably net several hundred dollars, easy.

  Part of what I remember was that my mom, desperate for reading material, read it, too, some of it aloud. And, yes, rereading it now, the dialog is just as bloody melodramatic and unnatural-sounding as it was when Mom was reciting it. Cockrum’s art was serviceable, but never (IMO) wonderful. Overall, this is quite a mediocre comic, and it would be deservedly lost in the mists of obscurity were it not what it signalled the beginning of. It took Claremont and Byrne, at the top of their form, to take this band of misfits and send them to the top of the charts. [B-/B]

• 3) Uncanny X-Men #137 (9/80) “The Fate of the Phoenix” – And this was it — Claremont and Byrne at the top of their form. Close, personal writing, mixed with stunning, exciting art. I was just beginning to seriously collect comics at this time, being off at college, and this made me search for all the C/B issues I’d missed. The C/B run on X-Men would set the gold standard to me for what a good comic was all about.

  Claremont’s prose is occasionally overwrought, but most of the lines can be spoken aloud without gagging. And his study of the interpersonal relations between the various characters is excellent. Byrne’s pencilled, inked by his best collaborator, Terry Austin, are superb, lacking the sloppy breeziness of his more recent work, fully expressive and vibrant.

  By now the story well-known of how Jim Shooter overrode C/B and required Jean Grey/the Phoenix to die (except she didn’t, neither of them, but that was a ploy for a later day) for her destruction of the planet of the Asparagus People. Whether it was better to kill Jean and then bring her back later than to have simply depowered her (and, to be frank, brought her powers back later) is a question of aesthetics. Frankly, it’s just fun to reread this comic, even if it’s been reprinted a dozen times. Indeed, that’s probably a good sign that it really does deserve to be #3. [A/A]

And that’s all the comic books on the table — well, all the ones I’ve read, and the rest get to go upstairs, and I really better sign off because tomorrow’s a work day.