Marvel comics Highlights #3: 1977-1981
As soon as the first Star Wars came out in 1977 everybody was trying to ride the hype by making something similar. In the case of Marvel, that came in the form of the Phoenix Saga. It was an amazingly campy space opera and the first time I was truly engaged with what was going on. In retrospect, it feels very out of place to have the X-men being the ones dealing with the crisis. It wasn’t about racism, or mutants, or even Earth. What are the X-men doing in space? This is something the Fantastic Four should be doing, or Captain Mar-vell, or the Guardians of the Galaxy… if they were invented yet. I assume it’s because they wanted to expand the backdrop of Cyclops and use Jean’s Phoenix Force for something greater than minor battles on Earth. Whatever the reason, it was a brilliant arc and it’s something I highly recommend reading. By the way, the 90s cartoon adapted it in a very family friendly manner. If by any chance you watched it, the comic version is ten times more awesome.
Remember when I mentioned Captain Mar-vell and how he always messes around without ever doing anything significant? Well, in 1978 there was an explosion which caused some of his powers to be transferred to an Earth woman named Carol Danvers, which went on to be an Avenger named Ms. Marvel. That’s the only thing he did. Anyways, what began as an attempt to have a dynamic female superhero, in 1980 became one of the most misogynistic stories Marvel ever made. Ms. Marvel was brainwashed into falling in love with Marcus, the son of a time controlling villain, who went on to impregnate her with himself, which means she eventually gave birth to her own rapist. And all the Avengers were doing was standing there, doing nothing about it because supposed that would make Marcus and Immortus good guys. How the fuck do you excuse brainwashing, rape, and self impregnate as acts of good will? Holy shit man, the producers were forced to take her out of commission because nobody wanted to read her stories anymore. One of the worst ideas ever. What kind of people are making these comics?
An event that took place in the same year was the Dark Phoenix Saga. Something you will see a lot in Marvel comics is that no superhero is allowed to be too happy or too powerful for too long. The Phoenix Force was making Jean way too powerful; there was no real challenge with her around. So, the producers decided to kill her in the most tragic way. She loses control of her powers, kills billions of people on other planets and causes all space empires to turn against her. The X-men tried to help out but she simply couldn’t control herself for long, thus she allows to be killed as means to prevent further deaths. Very heart-breaking, very grey in morality, a good message of how absolute power corrupts you absolutely, and a darn shame they eventually undid the whole thing later on. Oh, and please do not compare this to X-men The Last Stand because that movie was bullshit and had nothing to do with the comic.
If you thought the bigshots over at Marvel realized their mistake with Ms. Marvel, you are gravely mistaken. In 1981, Hank Pym turns into a violent wife-beater, and hits his wife Wasp. Why the hell did he do that? Well you see, he was always the Yamcha of the Avengers. Always the first to be defeated, his powers were boring, his intellect as a scientist was overshadowed by Tony Stark’s charm, and the only thing he contributed all these years was accidentally creating Ultron. The guy was useless, the readers didn’t care about him, and the writers didn’t know what to do with him. So, in order to spice things up in an attempt to make him more interesting to the audience, they turn him into a butthurt villain named Yellowjacket. That’s right, the movie made it seem like Yellowjacket was his archenemy when in the comic books Ant-man is Yellowjacket after he got fed up with being treated as cannon fodder. He turns against the Avengers and when his wife tries to reason with him, he slaps her for trying to help. And thus he instantly becomes another hated Avenger. Now to make something clear, giving flaws to heroes is a very good way of making them easier to relate. For example, a few years ago Tony Stark was turned into an alcoholic just to spice things up, which to the most part worked out because it was a personal conflict. He was mostly hurting himself, and nobody else directly. This is not what happened with Hank Pym, he was now a self-destructive, wife-beating jerk. Of course and nobody liked it. What kind of people are making these comics?
In the very same year, another amazing event took place in X-men. By the way, did you notice how the Avengers are constantly fucking up whereas the X-men are kicking ass? That’s why they became so famous and lovable. Anyways, the event that took place was Days of Future Past. Many of us see it as a rip off of Terminator today but the truth is, it predates the first Terminator by 3 years, so I don’t know if both of them were inspired by something else. Anyways, you know the drill, the future is shit, someone needs to go back and change an event that will cause it. It was fun, even though it’s essentially a lazy time reset, but I want to focus on two things that were important in it. The first is that the grim future timeline was not erased. It became an alternative dimension which kept existing and interacting with the mainstream timeline. Keep that in mind because it will be important later on.
The second thing is Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat being the one in the comics which returned her consciousness from her future self to her younger self and warned the X-men about the crisis. Not Bishop from the cartoon, not Wolverine from the movie. This is important because as a character Shadowcat was introduced as the replacement of Jean Grey. She belonged in the third generation of X-men, meant to be relatable to younger readers, became part of a highlight soon after her introduction, and developed a lot as a character in the following decades. This made her very memorable, compared to let’s say Jubilee later on, which belonged in the fourth generation, also supposed to be relatable to younger readers but otherwise never did something major on her own to become memorable. And I am pointing this out because Jubilee became famous thanks to the 90s cartoon when she’s otherwise a minor comic relief background character in the comics, whereas not many knew of Shadowcat at that time because she wasn’t in the cartoon and the publishers were constantly trying to undo her affair with Colossus. As a geek this is pissing me off. Shadowcat is amazing, Jubilee is a nobody.