X-MEN #101 (June 2000)

Hard Landing

Credits: Chris Claremont (writer), Lenil Francis Yu (penciler), Mark Morales (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Liquid! (colors)

Summary: Psylocke barely lands the shuttle at JFK Airport, crashing through numerous parked planes. The X-Men flee to their mansion, desperate to search for Shadowcat. Meanwhile, Cecilia takes Nightcrawler to an underground medical facility for treatment. Suddenly, a gunfight between Detective Charlotte Jones and druglord Rufus Delgado explodes into the storefront. Archangel, flying nearby, notices the commotion and arrives to help. Nightcrawler disobeys Cecilia’s orders and teleports the two of them back to the apartment complex next to his church. Nearby, Delgado locates a child Neo and takes him as a hostage. While pursuing Delgado, Archangel and Jones are tricked by another child Neo into entering separate rooms. Both experience horrific fantasies. Ross sees the bodies of friends killed by Delgado. Archangel is seduced, then attacked, by former loves. While escaping, Archangel hits his head, then falls unconscious while flying above the city. Meanwhile, Rax and a new team of Neo corner Cecilia and Nightcrawler. Trapped, Cecilia takes a dose of Delgado’s drug Rave, which will allegedly enhance her mutant powers.

Continuity Notes:

·       Archangel appears, of course, in a new costume dominated by pointless shoulder pads, spikes, belts (with tiny X designs to accompany the large X belt buckle), and metallic gloves.

·       Nightcrawler says he’s obligated to protect those “inside that apartment building” next to his church. Cecilia speculates the Neo’s attack had something to do with Nightcrawler’s “friends.” This apparently isn’t true, but the full story behind these “friends” remains a garbled plot point during these issues.

·       Candy Southern is mistakenly colored with blonde hair, not black, during Archangel’s fantasy.

·       Detective Charlotte Jones, under her street clothes, is wearing the X-uniform given to her by Forge in Uncanny X-Men #264.

·       Rufus Delgado and his street drug Rave debut this issue.

·       Jones identifies Rufus Delgado as “a Rave-pushing cop killer.” Her fantasy reveals Maria Soares as an officer killed by Delgado this night.

Continuity Notes - Special Neo Edition:

·       Narrative captions state Domina is determined to conquer and destroy humanity.

·       Apparently it’s the adult Rax, not the kid seen at the end of last issue, who’s declaring that he’s Jaeger now. Domina retorts he’s nothing without her permission.

·       The kid Neo introduced are Tartarus (the boy taken hostage by Delgado) and Elysia (a girl who can apparently create nightmare fantasies.) Tartarus would appear to be the character misidentified as “Rax” at the end of last issue.

·       Rax refers to Jaeger, the Neo killed by Cecilia last issue, as his uncle.

·       Yet another new Neo crew, unnamed, appears with Rax at the end, hunting Nightcrawler and Cecilia Reyes.

“Huh?” Moments:  Rufus Delgado literally crashes into the story behind the wheel of what appears to be a monster truck. There’s also some confused storytelling in the end—whether or not Cecilia has been impaled by one of Rax’s arrows is unclear.

Critics’ Corner: I remember this as the first issue of the relaunch to be trashed online. Aside from the chaotic plot, fans griped about Claremont’s old-school, and quite wordy, recap of the X-Men’s concept during the opening. One of his new “Claremont Clichés”—characters using “so” for emphasis (as in “I am so out of my league!”)—also began to grate.

Review: The third issue in, and we’ve reached the first installment that could charitably be called “borderline comprehensible.” The opening sequence is a decent intro, drawing a direct parallel between this moment and the famous scene in Uncanny X-Men #101. It’s a nice in-joke for those in the know, although if Claremont’s attempting to make a larger point, contrasting how Psylocke uses her powers when compared to Jean, the message appears lost.

What is entertaining is newbie Thunderbird interacting with a human member of the crew, understandably upset to see his life disrupted by warring mutant factions. Thunderbird tries to present a defense, but really doesn’t have one. The mere presence of the X-Men on that base placed these humans at risk, but it’s apparently something they didn’t even consider. It’s a more nuanced take on the concept of anti-mutant bigotry, one that suits Claremont’s ability to make even peripheral characters three-dimensional.

After that, the story takes a bonkers turn. A series of absurd coincidences has 1) X-Men ally Detective Charlotte Jones abruptly crash into Nightcrawler and Reyes’ hideout during a shootout, 2) her opponent to be a drug pusher specializing in a drug that can enhance mutant powers, and 3) Charlotte’s ex-boyfriend, and former X-Man, Archangel spotting the action from the skies, as he just happens to be flying by.

It’s comics. I could forgive one of these. Not three. Especially when the Charlotte Jones plot feels as if it’s been inserted from a different comic. She’s even referencing events that happened hours earlier, as if the reader was there to witness them; as if we all missed the concurrent issue of the X-Factor crossover that introduced this Rave storyline and have to guess the details. Admittedly, having Jones placed in a hallucination where she’s confronted by the animated corpses of the cops she couldn’t save is a solid idea. (And, if Yu had been on his game, it would’ve looked great.) But when the corpse is a character we’re just now discovering, and she’s referencing events we didn’t see…c’mon, it’s not going to work.

(Want to streamline all of this and still put Reyes in a position to reluctantly take a drug? Just establish Rave as one of the pills storied in this underground medical facility, normally patronized by criminals.)

In the midst of this, Nightcrawler’s suddenly concerned about an unnamed group of individuals who live next to his church. So, the story goes on another detour, all in service of a plot point that’s never resolved.

But if you want truly muddy storytelling, the Neo have you covered. Even more members debut this issue, most of them with no given names. There’s no consistency to their design sense (some look Steampunk, others resemble rejected Wildstorm villains), aside from the face paint and wacky hairstyles. Apparently, they have two kids just hanging about; when one of them is kidnapped, it’s difficult to care at all given the chaotic storytelling of the sequence.

To be fair, some of these designs are cool. And the dynamic between Domina and Rax (which some fans compared to Megatron and Starscream) has potential, adding some personality to the group. The largest issue would be the sheer volume of Neo, all thrown at you at once, with little to no identification, in the midst of a story arc that’s already bouncing in too many directions.

Yu’s inability to consistently render any of this is also a problem. His background figures (and even some of his foreground figures) appear sketchy, many of the faces are just ugly, and in addition to dropping pupils, now he’s sometimes just drawing eye sockets, or dropping facial features altogether. Since Yu was doing this in every issue, I’m wondering why the inker hadn’t already been instructed to, y’know, fix this.

When important story points are bungled, Yu’s panel-to-panel storytelling is often to blame. What’s frustrating is he can still draw extremely well, just not consistently. That opening shot of Delgado’s monster truck busting into the infirmary makes little sense storywise, but it looks amazing. So are some of the intricate details on the Neo’s costumes. Or the cartoony air traffic controllers at JFK. Actually, were Yu to drop the pretense of realism and embrace cartooning, I’d love to see it. What he’s doing here, inconsistently abandoning details, snapping back and forth between styles, is more frustrating than anything.

This entry exists thanks to those who posted Amazon reviews of my new novel, Black Hat Blues. I’ll continue posting installments in this series—one for every review the book receives. So if you want this series to continue, please, leave a review!