#xmv2n1

[gaknar]

You know what, all these big budget early 90s super hero comics have in common? Training scenes. X-Force did this exact same shit like 2 issues ago. There’s even a feral member of the team getting out of control.

Aw what am I bitching about. It’s not like training scenes are anything new. I’m just anxious for them to get to the story!! Enough with the sexy training scenes! (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

Alright here we go with this shit. It’s a little weird that most of the members of X-Factor got relegated to the background for this new “team” shot. Anyway, I don’t know whether to get sentimental about getting to the final Chris Claremont issues from the definitive run of comics from my childhood, or to bitch some more about how badly the comic book industry ripped us all off when we were 12 years old by making us buy 6 copies of this thing (one copy of each cover to be preserved along with a reading copy). You know what, I’ve already bitched, and I honestly don’t remember a god damn thing that happens in this story so I’m not going to do either. Seriously, I can remember just about every single X-Men story from my childhood, but this one is a complete blank, which tells you the kind of impression it had on me. With the context of the entire series behind me now, I will look at it with different eyes. Let’s just see if it even makes any sense, after everything that has happened, that the X-Men are fighting Magneto again. One other comment here. God damn it, the team has never looked better than in this artwork right here. (X-Men Vol 2 #1 - Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

This comic services a lot. We’ve radicalized Magneto again, met a new team of villains, caught up with the reformed X-Men who are now split into two separate teams, had a bad ass training mission, fought Magneto, fired some nuclear missiles, ended up back in Genosha for the first time since the events of X-Tinction Agenda, and there’s still time at the end of this comic for the X-Men to fight Magneto’s new henchmen, the Acolytes (who, if I’m being honest, have no business fighting the X-Men). 

It was a packed comic book, maybe too much, as none of these plot developments had very much punch to them,. For being the biggest selling comic book of all time, it’s a below average X-Men comic in my opinion. Not one that I’d recommend to anyone starting out with the series. It’s Claremont going out with a fizzle, and it’d be interesting to hear some candid interviews from him reflecting on this period of his career. I wonder if such things exist. (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

There are some confusing continuity issues in this comic. First, the X-Men appear to be living happily in the X-Mansion, which has been blown to smithereens ever since Inferno and has not been rebuilt. So either a significant time-jump has taken place, or this is a Danger Room simulation. Later, it’s revealed that at least part of this comic does indeed take place in the Danger Room, but it’s never established if that includes these opening scenes here, or whether the X-Mansion was rebuilt. I hope they address this and don’t forget about it, and everybody is living in the X-Mansion again like nothing happened. You don’t just rebuild a whole mansion in a couple of weeks! This would be a significant contractor job that all the X-Men would probably be helping with for a very long time!

Secondly, Jubilee is nowhere to be found in this comic. Where is she?? It seemed like she was asked to join the team in the last issue of X-Factor (although @thelastvisibledog pointed out that the scene might have actually been Wolverine kicking her off the team, I dunno), and she’s certainly a prominent member of the cast from this time period forward, so I was surprised to see her absent from this inaugural issue. They don’t even mention anything like, oh, she’s getting X-Baby training out in the backyard, or anything. (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

Now those are some sexy pajamas. Magneto gets duped kinda easily here. There’s these Acolyte characters, who are more or less inspired by his actions as a super villain, and they probably have nefarious intentions, but for the most part they just kind of bring the world’s problems to Magneto’s doorstep and he gets manipulated by them pretty quickly. Which sucks because how comfortable did he look in those pajamas!! He’s just trying to have a quiet afternoon! He was probably reading comics up there on his asteroid trying to ignore all the buffoons down on Earth. That’s like me in my basement! And the second you peak your head out onto Facebook there’s some guy sucking off Elon Musk’s D for telling people that they can’t work from home anymore. A lot of people are more productive working from home, you fools! What do you care anyway!! Why are all these neckbeards worshiping Elon Musk’s D! Is it so impossible to go through life without worshiping anyone??? If you feel compelled to worship someone, you are probably brainwashed! Stop it! (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

Well Magneto’s up here lighting off nukes. I guess this is the point of no return for a super villain such as he. Even if you aren’t a super villain, if you pop off a nuke, they are going to come after you. You can’t just be doing that. There are environmental considerations to take into account. Not a smart move, which is my only objection to this turn of events. Wouldn’t he know better?

This bit here where Magneto is lamenting how quickly his X-Men allies turned against him, after he spent a good deal of time reforming himself and acting as guardian of Xavier’s school, is heart breaking, if you’ve ever had a friend turn on you, or been forced to turn on your own. It makes the X-Men, and especially Wolverine seem pretty mindless, but that’s what happens when you let Cyclops lead you into battle. At least Magneto’s got some new friends to hang out with in his asteroid! (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

Yet another direct callback to the tragic events of Uncanny X-Men #150. Did I tell you that was a big issue for me when I was a kid? It was one of the few back issues I managed to get ahold of after I started collecting the series, and I read it about a hundred times. Good stuff. Anyway, this is a pretty good scene here, where Magneto resurrects the sub he sunk way back then in order to scavenge some nuclear warheads, and he’s confronted both by the X-Men, and the atrocities he committed in his past.

Pretty good stuff, but this is just a really weird fight between the X-Men and Magneto. Magneto is truly the passive member of this confrontation, as the X-Men recklessly attack him, stab him, shoot him, punch and kick him through the walls. He’s comes off as extremely sympathetic, as he’s merely collecting some nuclear insurance, but this, of course, is not looked upon lightly by the governments of the world. If we can take anything away from this . . . it’s that Cyclops is is shitty leader!! Seriously! You’re leading a malevolent GANG of THUGS at this point, sicking them on a peaceful old man who is literally just trying to exercise his second amendment rights!! (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)

[gaknar]

I know that Chris Claremont wrote this comic, just like he wrote the almost 200 issues of Uncanny that came before this, but this one here sure feels different. Just look at how the words and art are fighting over the page. This feels creatively conflicted, and story doesn’t flow as naturally as the X-Men comics of the past. Compare this to Uncanny X-Men #150, which has a very similar conflict and aesthetic, with almost the exact same characters fighting the exact same villain in the exact same sort of isolated environment, and this doesn’t feel anywhere near as immersive. It feels forced.

At the very least, we get a natural continuation of Magneto’s story. Last we saw him, he was fighting alongside Rogue in the Savage Land, and at the end of that conflict he lost his temper, murdered a bunch of people, and stormed off by himself. When we catch up to him here, he’s reverted to living in solitude on a new Asteroid M, and to my relief, his behavior is consistent with how he was portrayed just before this. He’s not yet the raving lunatic super villain that the cover of this comic makes him out to be. He’s just fed up and trying to establish space between himself and humanity. He’s on the verge of being radicalized again but he’s not quite there yet. Later in this comic when he fights the X-Men, he’s practically the good guy, and it’s the heroes who turn overly aggressive. I wonder if this was a compromise between Jim Lee and Chris Claremont. Ok, you can draw Magneto fighting the X-Men, but he’s going to be the good guy, and all my characters that you’re ruining, they are going to be the dicks. (X-Men Vol. 2 #1 – Oct 1991)