Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
What can I say? These boys (and Lizzybeth) have issues, and that’s exactly what I love about the column. Check out their latest sickness here:
I am Professor Charles Xavier, known as Professor X to my students and ProfDaddy_XXX in the TalkBacks of Ain’t-It-Cool-News! Some may be surprised to learn that I frequent this den of juvenilia, but truth be told, I cannot get enough of the Hollywood gossip! I nearly popped my catheter when Harry first posted those pictures of Hobbit feet, and fully supported my fellow TalkBackers’ vitriol when word got out that McG was in talks to direct SUPERMAN! I lambasted Warner Brothers in a lengthy TalkBack post, then took it upon myself to use my mental powers to give McG Tourette’s Syndrome! And, after much contemplation, even I must admit that Keira Knightly is indeed the sexiest tomboy beanpole on the planet! Plus, for a guy who spends his waking hours searching for adolescent mutants shunned by society at large, this place is my Disneyworld. Already the ranks of my X-Men have swelled with such former TalkBackers as KevinSmithsDoobie, OptimusMime, and Darth_Anus. Heroes, all.
But what bothers me to no end is the fact that, while Harry Knowles and his ilk have given coverage to the cinematic depictions of my X-Men, not a word has been uttered about the comics that started them all. For thirty years I’ve been placing my naive students into horrendous, violent situations to entertain a jaded public, and yet there are people out there who only know us from the movies, or worse yet, that 90’s cartoon where the silly Cajun card-thrower got as much time as my prize student, Cyclops!
Which is why I’ve called you here today. For amidst the chaos of Ain’t-It-Cool-News, there exists a cadre of mutant comic reviewers who fight the good fight week in and week out. Yea, though they are hated and feared simply because they exist (and are smarmy as hell sometimes), the TalkBack League of @$$holes is ever a voice of sanity! Today they will share tales of some of their favorite X-Men stories to educate you, the drooling commoners! Let the call go out…
The Comedian: The X-Men storyline I have the fondest memory of is “The Asgardian Wars,” mostly because it was the first X-Men story I read and it was the first trade paperback I bought when I was all of 11 years old. It was my introduction to the four-color world of the X-Men, The New Mutants, and even the setting of Asgard. I mean, I obviously knew who the X-Men were thanks to “Spiderman and his Amazing Friends.” Cyclops was the guy with the new wave shades who had heat vision just like Superman. Nightcrawler was the ugly blue guy who could teleport and fart blue smoke. Storm was the half naked chick in the black cape. Wolverine was the Australian guy who had shish kebob sticks on his gloves.
I initially picked it up because I was flipping through it at my local shop and I liked the way Art Adams drew Storm’s boobs - it ended up being my first serious fix of Marvel mayhem. Before that, I was a DC kid. I read Justice League, Batman, Superman, Action Comics, The Doom Patrol, Checkmate, etc. I knew who the Marvel heroes were, but the only book that I picked up on a regular basis was Gruenwald’s Captain America. “Asgardian Wars” was one of those stories rife with subplots and tons of continuity homework. For me though, that was the whole hook of reading comics in the first place - learning all the mythologies and building this whole universe in your head. Claremont’s ensemble soap opera hooked me in from that moment on. Not only did he have subplots left and right going on with the X-Men and the New Mutants, but he also worked Asgard into all of this. Thor is nowhere to be seen in this story and honestly once I finished it and tried to read Thor, I was bored to pieces. Asgard just seemed way cooler through the eyes of these outsiders. Apparently it was so cool that some of them even stuck around. And how cool is it seeing Wolverine hang out with The Warriors Three?
I guess what really strikes me about this storyline, looking back, is that this is the kind of random crossover you just don’t read anymore in comics. The dumbest thing I ever did was two years later when I sold the issues to this kid in my 7th grade class for 17 bucks. By then I was reading X-Men monthly and I didn’t see the need to hold onto it since that storyline was going on four years old. I think I took the money and bought a Guns ‘N’ Roses t-shirt or something. God, I was such a creep back then.
Professor X: Do not judge yourself harshly, Comedian. Though the outer world may shun your poor taste, vulgar demeanor, and vestigial tail, here at Xavier’s Academy, we preach tolerance. “The Asgardian Wars” was a good storyline, Art Adams did draw a profound bosom on Storm, and Guns ‘N’ Roses was like an oasis of true rock amidst the doldrums of the 80’s hair bands. That said, “Use Your Illusion” I and II were a total rip-off.
Ambush Bug: Let there be a culling! Long before Age of Apocalypse or Onslaught or even Inferno, the X-books had the crossover to beat all X-overs. That’s right, you cellar-dwelling outcasts of society, I’m talking about the MUTANT MASSACRE. This arc ran through all of the X-books and even showed up in a few issues of THOR and POWER PACK during the late 80’s. The Morlocks had been introduced as outcasts among outcasts. Sure Storm and Kitty and Cyclops were cursed with mutant powers, but they looked damn good being cursed. The Morlocks were not so lucky. These guys put the ugly in fugly. They were monsters. Freaks. Mutants who didn’t have great powers, but were simply cursed with appearances and abilities that made interaction with the human population impossible. So these dregs of mutant society banned together and retreated to the sewers of Manhattan, living life in their own dirty, mutie way.
Led by a one-eyed, Joan Jett look-a-like named Callisto, the Morlocks lived in peace in the catacombs underneath New York City. Aside from the occasional Kitty Pryde abduction and attack on the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, these downtrodden mutants were looked at as tentative allies to the X-Men. But to others, they were expendable, bottom-feeding wastes of good X-genes.
In the massive tunnel dubbed the Alley, a band of mutant mercenaries named the Marauders, rounded up most of the Morlocks and slaughtered them. This was no battle between super powered mutants, this was a culling, a wholesale massacre of an underground mutant culture. Mister Sinister, leader of the Marauders and pretty much the coolest damn baddie ever to grace the pages of the X-books, deemed the Morlocks perfect subjects for a first strike toward cleaning up the mutant gene pool.
What makes this X-over stand out more than all of the rest is that it actually had ramifications that lasted long after the crossover was over. Angel was harpooned to a wall by his wings – which would lead to their amputation and Angel’s betrayal of the X-Men with Apocalypse. Colossus was wounded severely and was forced to stay in his armored form. Kitty and Nightcrawler were mortally hurt and had to be shipped off to Muir Island, which led to the formation of EXCALIBUR. Wolverine and Sabretooth had their first tussle, and boy was it a tussle. It had all of the blood and grue you wanted in that final fight scene in the first X-MEN movie. Thor unleashes a firestorm in the tunnels to wipe out the piles of dead Morlock bodies. Those cute little Power Pack-ers are flitting around looking clueless. This crossover showed the X-Men as selfless heroes, sacrificing their own safety for the survival of lesser members of their species. Hundreds of Morlocks were killed and the X-Men were changed forever.
The MUTANT MASSACRE is a tragically powerful epic. The crossover ran through UNCANNY X-MEN #210-212, X-FACTOR #9-11, NEW MUTANTS #46, THOR #373-374, and POWER PACK #27. I remember running to the comic shop to read the next issue of this crossover. I was actually scared for the lives of my favorite mutants for the first time. It was a tale of great heroism, heartbreaking loss, and truly evil villainy. With the way Singer and Co. borrow heavily from past storylines, I’d kill to see the Morlocks and the Marauders in an X-flick.
Prof X: They let the children of Power Pack into that charnel house of a storyline?! Back when we still had the Comics Code?!? Utterly irresponsible. Children are not prepared for the carnage of war until their teens, people, their teens.
Sleazy G: If I had to name my favorite X-MEN story, I think it would probably be that one with Wolverine. You know, the one where he’s upset about something? And then he ends up arguing with some of the other X-Men and then leaves for a while?
Hmm. No. On second thought, I think it would actually be that one 67-part summer issue and Annuals crossover from the mid to late 80’s. You know, the ones where tons of really, really bad stuff happened with the High Evolutionary or the Four Horsemen or Magneto or Atlantis or whatever? And there weren’t any permanent affects, except that Angel became Archangel and his skin turned blue?
Waitwaitwait. I think the best one was probably the old “FF vs. X-Men” series where the two battled each other, although I don’t really know why. I think maybe Mephisto was responsible or something, but really, it was a long time ago. Maybe Franklin was in there somewhere—I think he mighta saved the day, the little cosmically-powered rascal.
Or hey, what about when the X-team moved to Australia and hung out with the wise old mute guy who spun a string with a rock on it over his head and teleported shit with it? He didn’t talk, but he was kinda like an Australian Bagger Vance or some shit. I don’t really know what the whole point of that was, but I think it was supposed ta lead up to some kinda big spiritual breakthrough/after-school special thingy that taught the team how to get along better with each other and those who opposed them. Again.
Oh yeah, and remember that one time when Marvel thought it’d be funny to mess with us by starting a new X-Men book with like 8 different covers and you had to have ‘em all cuz they’d be worth money some day and then they split all the X-duders and X-dudettes into two different teams cuz it was way too hard to remember what was going on otherwise? And then you stopped buying the book anyways when you realized you couldn’t sell it to make money anymore?
And you know who was totally kickass and stuff? The Boba Fett of the X-Men Universe. Y’know, that one chick Wink whose story I never even read, cuz she was in like one issue of another multipart crossover that didn’t really do anything and then she died? I mean, I don’t even know if she did anything, but she must have been totally deck, since nobody ever let it go once she died and raised her the level of a freakin’ mutant deity. She was way cooler than all those other characters that everybody already forgot about even though they were in the books for years, like Maggit and Shattercrap and Domin-X and whoever the hell the new writers always invented cuz they hoped somebody, somewhere, would actually remember five years later that they actually got to write the All-New, All-Kickass X-Men for a little while.
Wow. So much awesome history to look back on, so many memorable stories and characters—now I can see why this is considered the most important set of characters in the Marvel Universe. They really have proved themselves to be the standard-bearers, huh? I mean, nobody does overwrought soap-operatics with a cast of thousands of forgottens, reformed villains gone bad again, family histories that are ridiculously serpentine, and plots ripped off any and all available alternate pop-culture sources quite like the X-MEN, y’know? Ah, but I kid because I lov—well, kinda like once in a while, anyways.
Prof X: My word, were I not confined to this chair, I would stand up and give this traitorous “Sleazy G” a swift kick in the X-crotch! I’ve met Sentinels with more warmth! But wait…my legs have been healed in the current comic continuity – come to me, Sleazy, allow me to introduce your ‘nads to my newly-functioning foot.
Cormorant: Colossus gets all of one big scene in X2, with probably less than a minute of total screen time, but you simply can’t talk to an X-Men fan without them mentioning how utterly cool it was to see the big, Russian bruiser armor up and kick ass. With that in mind, I’m spotlighting a tough, Colossus-centric story for this column: UNCANNY X-MEN #183. I love all the great X-Men stories from when I followed the series (roughly issue 100 through 200), but when it comes to Colossus material, this one deserves a spotlight. Doesn’t hurt that it’s got Wolverine being one mean S.O.B. and Nightcrawler riding shotgun. It starts out all angsty, but stick around, ‘cause the fists fly like the second coming of Muhammad Ali by the end…
Here’s the backdrop: At the time of the issue, for several years “real time” we’d seen Peter Rasputin (that’s Colossus, newbies) flirting with fourteen-year-old cutie, Kitty Pryde. Sure, he was nineteen, lending their occasional foolin’ around a touch of creepiness, but she was a very mature fourteen, and he a very naïve nineteen. You know, a Russian farmboy. Makes it okay. So in issue #183, for various reasons, he breaks up with Kitty permanently. This was a big deal. They’d talked about getting serious, even married, but Peter’s love for another girl makes him uncharacteristically insensitive in telling Kitty it’s over, especially in light of her having risked everything to save him just a few issues prior. Peter needs a serious lesson in being a man and taking responsibility, and Wolverine decides he’s just the guy to teach it:
Wolverine (stopping Peter with his hand): You’re comin’ with me, into town, for a little long-overdue talk.
Peter: Some other time, perhaps. I am not really in the mood.
Wolverine: I don’t recall givin’ you a choice, Peter.
Wolverine’s pissed, and he sure as hell won’t back down just because Nightcrawler reminds him that Peter’s still a boy at heart:
Wolverine: Then he deserves a spankin’! If he’s a man, though, it’s time he faced the consequences of his actions. Either way, I’m takin’ a piece out of him.
But as luck would have it, Wolverine doesn’t have to do the dirty work, because his ultra-keen senses pick up none other than Hulk-level badguy, Cain Marko, in the bar. Cain’s also known as the Juggernaut, but that night, he’s just dressed as a civilian - a seven-foot-tall behemoth of a civilian, yes – but he’s not looking for trouble. So Wolverine makes some. He manipulates Peter into spilling his beer on the Juggernaut, a roughneck who’d fought the entirety of the X-Men to a standstill in the past, and though the superpowered barroom brawl that erupts lasts only five pages, it remains one of the toughest comic book throwdowns I’ve ever seen. To this day, I still salute writer Chris Claremont for making Wolverine such an utter bastard in this issue as to actually risk his own teammate’s life…just to teach him a lesson! But Colossus proves he’s got heart, and a helluva right cross, even if by battle’s end, the Juggernaut’s the one walking away. And Wolverine and Nightcrawler just let him go. It’s a mean little lesson, terrifically drawn by AMAZING SPIDER-MAN’s John Romita Jr., and just one of the many stories from Claremont’s heyday that Marvel could make a mint in reprinting.
Prof X: Now that was a recommendation! That is the kind of sycophantic praise I can appreciate, and what’s more, the one called Sleazy G is now my drooling mind-bitch. Xavier is pleased. Next recommendation!
Lizzybeth: Professor Obvious here, to recommend the classic Byrne/Claremont issues #129-137 commonly known as the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Sometimes the predictable choice is the right one. Dark Phoenix has become pretty much synonymous with Classic X-Men, and while there are many deserving “favorites” among the various X-Men arcs, it can be agreed that this is an indispensable story. It couldn’t be more clear that Hollywood has its eyes on this one – they probably could have sold copies of this volume outside the theater for exiting X2 patrons asking “what was that thing in the water about?” While I can’t say the same for the current run, I would happily hand out copies of Dark Phoenix to those moviegoers to let them know what they’re in for. No fair telling them, folks. Make them read it. Well, maybe I’d tease them a little. True (film) believers, Jean Grey is coming back. The Phoenix Force found her, and it’s already made her the most powerful being in existence. She won’t know it yet, but in future movie (maybe not the next, but it’s coming) we’re going to see her set entire planets aflame. You think Nightcrawler was impressive, just wait until Famke Janssen realizes she’s a goddess.
Chris Claremont and John Byrne weren’t really made for these times – look through this volume and it’s pretty clear that they wrote the rulebook that current guys like Morrisson are trying their damndest to subvert. With somewhat heavy-handed narration, exclamation-loaded dialogue, and relatively uncomplicated illustration, it’s easy to say (if you didn’t know any better) that Dark Phoenix proves too old-fashioned, too kid-oriented. Maybe this would be true if you want to call clear, focused storytelling old-fashioned. This is heavy stuff for a “just for kids” read, full of death and moral dillema and metaphor and all that good stuff you ask for in contemporary myth. It will be easy to update for the screen, with the right spirit in mind. Talk all you want about absolute power corrupting absolutely, but I’ve got another pithy aphorism for you: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Spock (gasping): Or the one! *choke*
Yes, the tragic self-sacrifice story has been told many times. But rarely has the force endangering the world and the compassion that enables the world to be saved resided in the same person. This is what makes Dark Phoenix the definitive X-Men story. Every mutant in the X-Universe has the potential for both great good and great evil – many of them, in their mutant careers, manage to accomplish both (just look at Magneto!). But the Dark Phoenix Saga takes this to the Nth degree, by giving Jean Grey in her limitless power the capability to commit the greatest of atrocities, and the most selfless acts of love, and allowing her to choose between them. In the end, her fate is her decision – not the X-Team’s, not Lilandra’s, and not Scott’s. While nearly all of the classic X-characters make strong appearances in these issues, the soul of the story is Phoenix, her love for Scott Summers and for life itself. Like all the X-Men, she gets to choose how she will use her power. Jean’s choice is probably the most heartbreaking of all.
And dammit, they should have left her dead.
Prof X: *Sniff* That…that was a beautiful sentiment, Lizzybeth. You know, I once loved Jean, too. In a “fatherly” way, you ask? Most definitely. But also, briefly, in that other way. Honest. Behold, doubters, the relevant forgotten panel from X-MEN #3, circa 1963!
It was, perhaps, Stan Lee’s boldest story concept ever, but alas, my throbbing passion went unrequited as the subplot was dropped shortly thereafter. I am sweating bullets in the hope that freethinking acidhead, Grant Morrison, might pick up where things left off. Not everything below my waist is paralyzed, you understand.
Oh, and did you like the pipe? It gives me a touch of class that mouth-breathers like Michael Chiklis will never match.
Buzz Maverik:
Not surprisingly, my favorite X-MEN arcs are very old ones.
I was too young to catch this in its original printing, but Marvel has reprinted it all the time: Neal Adams' Sentinel stories!
In the early '70s, Adams made the move from DC to Marvel and was assigned the art/plotting job on a fading title called X-MEN. Writer-editor Roy Thomas told Adams that since the book would soon be canceled, he could do whatever he wanted with it. Adams immediately threw out any hint of Kirby-esque art, created a character called Havok who didn't look like anything Marvel had produced up to that point, and applied his photorealistic yet dynamic style to the book.
In his second arc, Adams revived those purple and gray mutant-hunting robots called The Sentinels. He managed to make giant robots look like a real world menace as they attacked hip, young mutants. One of most visually incredible superhero battles of all time took place in the swank pad of Iceman's then-girlfriend, Lorna "Polaris" Dane, pitting a humanoid Beast and Iceman against a rampaging Sentinel. No movie and no comic book since has ever made a battle between super-humans and a character who could only exist in the imagination look so real. There was more than movement on those pages, there was high speed motion and shattering impact. I remember one panel in particular with the Beast smashing a Sentinel's tendril (with everything intricately shadowed), an _expression of fury and stress on the character's face and his giant monkey fist coming out of the borders in an effect that was beyond 3-D. Later, in the villain's lair, there was a similar panel, in which Havok wasted a Sentinel, that will give you radiation burns.
Prof X: Ah yes, a trip back to yesteryear. Another point of interest about that run is that my prize pupil, Cyclops, engages in some major league non-political correctness by calling some Egyptian soldiers “camel-jockeys” (ish #56)! I was flabbergasted! I gave him fifteen demerits and implanted a false memory that he once tongue-kissed the Blob.
Jon Quixote:
Uncanny X-Men #126-128
“Cyclops sucks!”
That taunt filled my car on the ride back from X2, a chorus of 10 year olds striking me where it hurt the most. My crime: trying to explain to them why I felt that Cyclops’s cinematic incarnation got shafted by the filmmakers. Children can be so cruel.
He did. Really. I understand that with so many characters jostling for screen time, some of them are going to get the short end of the stick. The problem was that the Cyke-Jean-Logan love-triangle was the fulcrum for the movie’s heart, and, really, we got a straight line; Wolvie and Jean, and every gal in the audience wondering exactly what the hell she’s thinking when she goes back to her ineffectual, oft-captured wuss of a hubby. When you have a character who provides the movie’s most poignant emotional moment, his tears have a lot more weight when the audience respects him as strong, capable, and worthy of his woman’s love.
Xavier’s heir. Jean’s lover. Logan’s rival. The field commander for that side of the Human-Mutant conflict. An ineffectual, unimpressive Cyclops reflects poorly not only on his character, but those around him. Eventually, to do them all justice, the filmmakers are going to have to have him earn Logan’s respect, and that of the audience.
In the meantime, for those who want to add their voice to the Cyclops Sucks Tabernacle Choir, I’d suggest you pick up the Proteus story before you start practicing your scales.
Proteus was the most dangerous mutant the world had ever known. A psychic vampire with the power to alter reality, he was growing more and more powerful with every host body he possessed. And he had thoroughly trounced the X-Men, particularly Wolverine, whose heightened senses made him even more susceptible to Proteus’s reality warping. While the X-Men regrouped before round two, Logan was a wreck, his spirit left in shambles by the torture Proteus forced him to endure.
Cyclops recognized that for a man like the Wolverine, turning coward was a fate worse than death. His solution: whip Wolvie into a berserker fury before the furry Canuck had a chance to realize exactly what had happened to him. Prodding Wolverine into an insane rage, Cyclops then had to use every bit of his tactical skill not only to survive, but to deliver Wolverine (and a good portion of the rest of the X-Men) a solid pounding, getting them fired up – and giving them something to prove – before the cataclysmic final battle with Proteus. And boy is it a doozy – Colossus tearing loose, Nightcrawler at his finest (“agility is my specialty”), and some creepy, creepy Oedipal stuff that makes you really wonder what was going through the heads of the Comic Code guys. But the high point of that classic arc is Cyclops putting an end to his long-standing feud with Wolverine, reminding the ol’Canucklehead – and readers everywhere – that he leads comics’ premier superteam for a reason.
“I ain’t thought much o’ you in the past, Cyke,” Logan says, “As team leader or a man. I was wrong.”
Don’t feel too bad, Wolvie. A lot of people are. They just haven’t read this arc.
Prof X: Hmm, in light of that stirring testimony, I think perhaps that I judged Cyclops too harshly. Ten demerits instead of fifteen.
Vroom Socko: It’s been a good long while since I’ve been a regular reader of the X-Men, mainly because there’s been very little to be found in the way of originality. (Yes, that includes your precious Grant Morrison. Fer’ Chrissake, not only did he bring back the Phoenix Force, but the first new team member he introduced is a blatant rip-off of one of the characters from Farscape.) In fact, the last genuinely original X-Story I read was back in the first few months of ’95. It was the biggest, wildest, most fucked-up story the X-Men have ever been involved in: the Age of Apocalypse.
The premise behind this is a bit complicated, so bear with me for a minute. Professor X’s son, the mutant called Legion, traveled back in time to kill Magneto. Due to interference from the X-Men, Legion killed the Professor instead. Fast-forward to the present, and Magneto is leading the X-Men, Mr. Sinister is the adopted father of Cyclops and Havok, and all of North America is under the rule of Apocalypse. Running through all of the X-Books (renamed for the duration of this story,) for four months, this saga took up a good 38 issues, and every page was a blast and a half.
Featuring such writers as Fabian Nicieza, Jeph Loeb, Larry Hama, Mark Waid, Scott Lobdell, and Warren Ellis, the Age of Apocalypse was a story where anything and everything can and did happen. Magneto and Rogue are married and have a child. Wolverine (wait, sorry - he’s not Wolverine in the AOA - he’s called Weapon X,) clawed out one of Cyclops’ eyes, so Scott returned the favor by blasting off Logan’s left hand. Cable is reborn as the X-Man, improving his character to no end. Iceman has never been better, and the Beast has never been viler. There’s plenty of chaotic Sentinel action. Sabertooth has never been this big a badass, especially with him carrying Wild Child everywhere on a leash. Not to mention that this is the introduction to the two best members of the Exiles, Blink and Morph.
This being from the mid-90’s, the art is a little too glossy for my taste. Adam Kubert was still in his “I really wish I was an Image artist” phase, and the less said about Joe Madureira and Roger Cruz the better. Still, there is some good-looking stuff to be found, mainly from Chris Bachalo. Believe me, his Kitty Rasputin is a beautiful terror to behold, and her husband Colossus is nothing less than a behemoth.
Much of this story is collected in TPB form, but they are long out of print. Finding the back issues themselves should be pretty easy though. The titles this story flows through are Factor X, X-Man, Gambit and the Xternals, Generation Next, Weapon X, X-Calibre, The Amazing X-Men, The Astonishing X-Men, and the two bookend one shots, X-Men Alpha and X-Men Omega. Trust your Uncle Vroom, and give this story a look see.
Prof X: An interesting, if dangerously modern choice, young Vroom. One thing that is most certainly accurate about that storyline is how it predicts death, mayhem, and the rise of Image-style art should I ever fall. Very “Terminator,” which reminds me – who else is pissed that the Terminator movies mean you’ll never see a comics-to-film adaptation of the similarly-themed “Days of Future Past” storyline from UNCANNY X-MEN? You just know Cameron would sue, even though Claremont and Byrne told their story some four years earlier. And I bet Harlan Ellison would want his two bits as well. I suppose I can take some small comfort in the knowledge that TERMINATOR 3 will suck wind so hard that it’ll leave audiences as bald as me.
*Sigh*
I am weary. Let us have a final recommendation so I may nap.
Superninja:
X-Men: Vignettes
Story by Chris Claremont, art by John Bolton
This isn't a review of my favorite X-Men story of all time. I don't really have a favorite because there are too many stories and moments that stand out. But among my favorite X-Men features were the backup stories first published in the reprints of Classic X-Men. It was always a vignette by Claremont and artist/illustrator John Bolton that focused on personal moments that took place in between some of the most famous story arcs of that time. It was a treasure trove of tales that were a slice-of-life, usually focusing on a particular mutant, and enhanced the Classic stories. Sometimes sweet, sometimes funny - angsty
