I decided to combine this week's edition and give you two issues of Mutant X. I gave you a tease last issue so as to not really give the cliffhanger away, but as the cover shows it is Magneto and the X-Men that have come home in this alternate dimension. Magneto is majestic on the last page of issue 9 as he tells us a little boy asked him to come and get his father. He is no less a force as we see him stand up to the Goblin Queen in the opening pages of issue 10.
She retreats before what appears to be a strong and commanding Magneto. We learn later that Polaris is propping up his powers with her own. It is just her and her Dad, Magneto that saved Alex. This deviates from the 616 Marvel Universe as there Polaris was deemed to not be Magneto's daughter. Still Alex is faced with the image of the woman from his reality that he loves still and the man that for years he has held as an enemy prepared to take him home to his not really my son Scotty.
Oh if that were the case. You see the Goblin Queen has now truly been able to combine the demonic life forces within her Sentinels and a light show of that power leads the trio into a trap. Even a demonic version of the futuristic Sentinel Nimrod appears. All would seem lost if not for the arrival of the X-Men. Roll call is as follows; Mystique, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, and rounded out by the already present Polaris. Soon Havok blasts all foes and they all escape and live to fight another day. Or just read Issue 11 already and see what happens next.
This is a Scotty Summers issue. It starts with him watching everyone discussing his Mom and what to do. Soon we have Bloodstorm abducting him. I am sure if she had not her vampiric powers Electra would have killed her. That is one skilled nanny little Scotty has. In the between pages we get a glimpse of Madelyne Pryor as she seems to be trying to gain the advantage over the Goblin Entity. It is a neat concept here having this opposite to the Phoenix Force. It is pure evil and soon we watch it consume Maddie once more, but it strikes a note of foreshadowing.
We watch as Brute comes to see Scotty and because his mind is simple maybe it is why he is the first to fight off the Goblin Queen's mind control. Soon he is trying to get Scotty free and becomes barbecue under The Fallen's flames. The Fallen reveals that he is operating under his own mind and tries to kill Scotty. Iceman and Bloodstorm become clear head long enough to aid Scotty. The Maddie appears and The Fallen is in for a world of hurt. That is when the strange happens. Maddie hugs her boy and sends Brute away with him before we get full Goblin Queen again. This leads us up to a milestone issue 12 of the series.
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Back from his adventure protecting the Nexus of all Realities, Havok finds himself once again running from the jacked up Demon-Sentinels in New York. This leads to him being swallowed by the pavement and joining the Resistance. Not really joining, but at least accepting there invitation to hide. It is nice that Ben Grimm will remain true to character and join up with the Mole Man even in an alternate reality. The Resistance has been formed by the underground duo of Mole Man and Callisto. They make an interesting match up.
Seems that the Underground as they call it has been slipping people away from the surface. All are living in this big pit and slowly being removed to other parts of the world. All Havok cares about now is getting home to his little boy Scotty and the hot Nanny Electra that is taking care of him. Why the rush? The last phone conversation was not a good one. Something strange happened on the other end of the line. It sets up the great cliffhanger to come.
Really this is the last issue with the Goblin Queen before it gets a bit repetitive in plot. We have a great betrayal in this issue. There is a horrific scarring of one character. Ben Grimm threatens to kill Havok numerous times if he is a traitor. Just a good roller coaster ride of an issue. That last page is so good. The comment made after the show of power was outstanding.
Soon we will have multiple battles with the rest of the mind controlled Six and The Fallen. Reed Richards has been ordered to build something and use the Presidency to hasten the job. Goblin Queen is becoming a bit of a tiresome adversary. There is a payoff at the end of this ride, but from here on things become static.
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Mutant X Mondays are back. I am sticking with Mutant X over Mantra right now because I am missing only one issue and two annuals in completing the entire run. I want to do this entire run look at books on here and really have the goal I always wanted when reviewing, being a place someone could look up and find out about comicbook series.
I feel a refresher might be in order to remind readers about this book. Havok, of the main 616 Marvel Universe has fallen from seeming death into an alternate reality where he has replaced the Havok of that world. This is a book that would be the love child of DC's Elseworlds and Marvel's What If? that can explain how it reads. People and things are different from what we know as continuity of the Marvel Universe. One thing is that Havok was apparently a real jerk. He leads the world's foremost team of heroes, The Six. They are The Fallen (Warren Worthington or Angel), The Brute (Beast, kinda), Iceman, Bloodstorm (Storm as a Vampire), Havok's wife Madelyne Pryor rounded out by our misplaced mutant. He has a child named Scotty and that catches things up.
When last we discussed the book Madelyne had become the Goblin Queen and begun taking over things. She had usurped the Six and Havok grabbed Scotty and his nanny Electra and high-tailed it away from them. They go to the X-Mansion and we meet Cerebro. In this world Cerebro is an artificial A.I. and helps Havok find out how far the Goblin Queen has gone. She has the White House for one thing. She also has perverted the Sentinels and they are a mix of magic and science now. oh, she has taken over New York as well.
Havok of course confronts her after sneaking and being discovered in New York. He fights the Six and the Goblin Queen is his to kill. Can he? Well, he ends this issue like he started the series, remembering that he is falling. It becomes a standard plot device to end the story or create tension in the series.
One big stand out here is the art of Cary Nord. He had a great run on Mutant X. You might know his current work on X-O Manowar.
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Once again we are dropped into the middle of the action. This time The Six have been called in by Man-Spider, even though Alex will constantly call him Spider-Man, battle a horde of demons. Yeah, we faced demons last issue as well. There is a twist here and some info about this version of Earth as the action continues. The Green Goblin is really similar to the one Havok knows, only here he makes clones and they look like demons and that is how he scares the Underworld into submission.
Maddie explains that these are not real demons, she knows, trust us that she knows. There is a bunch of stuff that goes down here, but really the spotlight is on two characters. One is the Brute. We have seen this child-like version of Henry McCoy be very strong and very simple. He is also very protective. That might be why Havok sends him to look after Maddie when she takes The Fallen and goes after The Goblin King as Osborn has proclaimed himself. That brings in the other spotlight.
The Goblin Queen has not taken to much to this whole scenario that is going down. Maddie has become that evil thing from last issue. She confuses both Osborn and Man-Spider. In the process we learn that some time ago an event happened that caused distrust in all the heroes that used magic. Even Dr. Strange has disappeared under this hatred. Now that the world has almost forgotten things that go bump in the night The Goblin King has brought those fears back. She kills both the Goblin King and Man-Spider. Poor Brute sees it and goes a bit bonkers and is heading to tell Havok.
We watch him threatened and bullied by The Fallen and coerced by Maddie until the Brute is afraid to talk. His parents, little Scotty, Havok, Bobby, all his loved ones are threatened. It leads to a heart-wrenching chase and sense of betrayal. It also sets up a more regular story design. We will watch things unfold and people be revealed as other than they appear as our boy Havok must unravel truths before he suffers big time.
It is getting good.
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I have read most of the Mutant X run and I am still unsure of the ends and outs of the Madelyne character. Her powers seem to be like Jean Grey's in terms of telekinesis. Yet, she at some point had to have had the "Inferno" type powers. This issue has us jump into a nightmare. Little Scotty and Havok end up evading hordes of Demons that are infesting Castle Bannerman.
Maddie is being seduced by a demonic entity in this issue. He has her so wrapped up in the desire for power. It is a creepy and well drawn issue. The fog effect in the Castle is cool. Strange roots take the rest of the Six out. Well, Bloodstorm leaves before we get into the action. That is a great tease. We see her return to her own Castle and be let in by someone she calls "Kitten" and drink from a waiting Forge. His lifeblood is her food. She refuses to drink of the opponents that the Six face. We get a small glimmer that she is a vampire, but fighting the vampiric nature.
This issue may seem like a quick and unimportant filler issue, but it is not. The biggest stories of later issues will revolve around this seduction to evil and the coming of the Goblin Queen. There is also a clue that Scotty is and always will be key to how Maddie can be reached. We see that here as her love of him broke the spell.
Mutant X is a forgotten fun gem from Marvel. Does anyone know if they ever collected this series?
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So everybody now knows that Havok thinks he is from another universe and traded places with the Havok that was killed by a Sentinel as he arrived. So they all think he is nuts. His wife Maddie wants him to see a shrink and everybody else is giving him funny looks. Again we are thrown into the middle of an adventure and don't really know what is happening. Havok spends a lot of time explaining how not ridiculous his story sounds by running down the back stories of The Six.
Soon he just nose doves the plane into Canadian airspace and they are immediately shot down. Seems Canada is a superpower and not on friendly terms with the USA. It does give us a look at three of Marvels wild boys. They are called The Pack and consist of Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Wild Child. All three are demented experiments by Canada that has left the three mutants in a feral and primal state. Wolverine and Sabretooth still wear pants. Always wondered about that in some weird way.
The Six are taken, The Six are found. Havok goes on instinct and helps the Pack find the old Weapon X lab. We see an awesome showing of Havok's power as he melts an adamantium door. Alpha Flight shows up and suggest The Six leave. Havok become happy as part of the team. We never know what happens to The Pack. Odd issue.
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Howard Mackie does something in the beginning of the Mutant X Series that I found a really great writing trick. We never really have a clear chance to settle into the time that is occurring. We read about Havok entering this strange new world and come to the close of that moment and when we rejoin Havok in the next issue we are smack dab in the middle of the next adventure with no setup. It helps to simulate for the reader the same emotions Havok himself is feeling.
It is nice to say good things about Howard Mackie after watching him saddled with the convoluted Spider-Man Clone Saga. Here he gets to take the Marvel toys and really shake up the sandbox. In Issue #2 we are introduced to the Mutant X version of the Fantastic Four. The story opens with The Six flying to answer a distress call from the FF concerning an invasion from a so called alien dimension. Havok is not only unsettled as he is now leading a team that is the world's best super heroic team, so he will be facing the misdeeds of his counter-part of this alternate Earth. See, apparently He and Sue Richards had an affair. It is an implied thing as we meet the FF and watch the two teams battle.
Break down on this Fantastic Four is as follows; Reed is still a genius and wears an armored suit with detachable extra arms, Sue wears a Stealth suit, Johnny is in a suit that lets him fly and throw fire, and Ben is still human and wears a big hulking armor with a terrible face. Reed is very off putting and later in the series we will see why. Sue seems glad to see Havok, while Maddie is not happy to see them together.
The rest of the story is a set up to get us to the nature of Havok as a traveller from another Earth. The resolution of that end of the story has a shock. As for the villain, he was strange. A small mentally powerful bug named Moot. Thing is he almost took over the FF and then Havok. So this starts the fun adventures of The Six and our alternate reality displaced Havok.
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Welcome to the new Monday posts called Mutant X Mondays. Because of the natural break and the desire to finish out some Mantra Issues she will be taking a hiatus for a bit. I do plan on collecting the issue post in one area soon. I am cheating a little this Monday in the hopes of getting ahead with some timed posts by using the Flashback Friday post to kickoff our look at Mutant X. It is a bit timely as Howard Mackie is doing work on the Second Wave DC book, The Ravagers. So click the big bold Mutant X and read what I said about issue one.
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