UNCANNY X-MEN #383 (August 2000)

Moscow Knights

Credits: Chris Claremont (writer), Adam Kubert (penciler), Tim Townsend w/Dan Panosian (inkers), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Richard Isanove (colors)

Summary: In Moscow, Storm evokes the name of her thief mentor El-Gibar to solicit the aid of mobster Simyon Kurasov. She explains Azlexei Vazhin called in a favor owed by the Thieves Guild to have Gambit recruit the X-Men. Their mission was to free Vazhin’s associate, Deb Levin, from The Slash, a seedy club run by the mysterious Ransome Sole. Storm remained as backup, while Phoenix, Gambit, Cable, and Beast were captured by Sole’s young slave, a mutant named Sketch. With Simyon’s help, Storm arrives in time to stop a slave auction overseen by Sole. Bidding for the X-Men are representatives of the Neo’s Shockwave Riders, and the interdimensional slaver known as Tullamore Voge. With the aid of Sketch, the X-Men overcome Sole and his flunkies: Big Casino, Revenant, Manacle, Bludgeon, and Cudgel. The Shockwave Riders teleport away Sole and his lackeys, but Deb Levin is freed, and Tullamore Voge taken into custody.

Continuity Notes:

• Gambit leading the Thieves Guild is the current status quo of his monthly solo series.
• The team is now deferring to Gambit as their leader. Let’s be generous and say that’s an intentional mystery from the Six Month Gap.
• There seems to be a concerted effort to now color Phoenix’s fire effect as pink (the Marvel shorthand for “telepathy”) instead of the traditional colors that indicate actual flames.
• Alexei Vazhin is the KGB agent, Russia’s answer to Nick Fury, who occasionally appeared in Claremont’s original run. Circa Uncanny X-Men #263, Claremont introduced a new subplot featuring Vazhin that went nowhere.
• Vazhin’s operating out of the KGB’s former base, a large building we’re told is virtually empty. There’s a cryptic reason for why no one chooses to enter the place (Vazhin blames “ghosts”) that is never developed.
• Deb Levin has an odd history, debuting as a spunky young soldier in Larry Hama’s Nth Man series, which was never Marvel canon. Claremont apparently took a liking to the character, working her into Uncanny X-Men #263 and Excalibur #27 years earlier. 
• Tullamore Voge is also from this era of Excalibur. Claremont always seemed to be hinting at an important role Voge, who at first glance would just appear to be a joke character. Apparently, he has a connection to the Hellfire Club, and the process that enabled Ahab to make mutants his Hound slaves.
• Achmed El-Gibar’s connection to the Thieves Guild was revealed in X-Men Unlimited #7, years after Claremont’s departure.
• Storm’s new Revolution costume is given to Simyon Kurasov’s Life Model Decoy of Storm. (How he has such a thing is a point Storm raises but there's no given answer.) The real Storm is clad in yet another new costume, a simpler black and gold design.
• Sketch, who has the power to alter reality by drawing sketches, was intended as a new member of the team. Claremont has made comments indicating the character was hated by either the editors or higher-ups (or both) and would likely never appear again.
• Simyon Kurasov requests Storm speak in English so that he can practice in the opening. Yet, Beast later questions if Simyon is Russian at all, given his American idioms. (“Blame it on CNN and MTV,” says Simyon…but if his English is that good, why the need to practice?)
• Storm can’t explain her aversion to Tullamore Voge, hinting at the larger significance Claremont always intended.

Continuity Notes - Special Neo Edition:

• Ransome Sole is exposed as a “renegade” Neo when auctioning off the X-Men. Sole is unusually tall, and has tattoos on the side of his face and neck, but doesn’t display any obvious powers.
• According to Sole, Domina is his sister.
• After going anonymous in their debut, the Shockwave Riders are receiving specific names. Farahd and Galadriel are the two in Moscow. Gethrin is identified as one of the Shockwave Riders from the previous two issues. Apparently, their names are Tolkien inspired.
• The Riders can download information from one another, granting these Riders the data collected on the X-Men.
• We’re told Farahd’s clan of Neo wants Phoenix for still unrevealed reasons.
• Whether or not Sole’s flunkies are also Neo is unknown. The stocky man with the hat on the cover is Big Casino, not Sole, by the way.

Production Note: This is a double-sized, forty-eight page issue with no cover gimmicks. ($2.99 cover price compared to the standard $2.25.)

Soon to be a Major Motion Picture! : The Bullpen Bulletins is hyping the Rogue movie tie-in, print ads featuring the movie poster, and Toy Biz action figures have begun, and Another Universe is flogging all kinds of movie merchandise in its stapled-in ad insert (which interrupts one of Kubert’s many double-page spreads.)

Most interesting, the movie poster lists writing credits that aren't on the official listing on the DVD. (I'm assuming the release of the film matches the DVD credits and not this early poster.) Christopher McQuarrie and Ed Solomon have the screenplay credit on the poster. They're not on the DVD at all. Instead, Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer have the story credit, and David Hayter is listed as the screenplay's author. (I remember reports that Singer made up most of the dialogue on the set, with Hayter's assistance.)

I Love the Early Aughts: “Enjoy a Four-Way Fling!” is the tagline for Another Universe’s set of female X-Men movie toys, including the underage Rogue. How many corporate apologies, and possible resignations, would we have within twenty-four hours of this ad being published today?

Critics’ Corner: Another issue slammed for being overly complicated and needlessly confusing. And Paul O’Brien seems to intensely hate Tullamore Voge.

Review: An odd personal significance to this issue. It’s the first time I recall reading a comic’s online preview, being floored by the colors, and then picking up the physical comic and realizing…well, it looked okay. But nothing great. I don’t think Marvel’s using those ultra-cheap color separators here (look at, say, issues of Gambit or Nova from this era to see what I mean). But it does seem as if the colorist/separators aren’t thinking about how the printed page is going to look. I will take this slightly sturdy newsprint over today’s ultra-ultra cheap thin paper with the awful glare, though.

Visually, this isn’t a homerun, but most of the pages are nice enough. Several of the new villain designs are memorable, and Kubert seems to be having great fun playing around with the team’s body language and facial expressions. Several panels actually remind me of Greg Capullo’s cartooning, which I consider high praise.

If only Kubert had been given a script that exploited this human element, instead of injecting a pastry bag of plot into an already stuffed plot doughnut.

Uncanny’s sister title is suffering from important plot points that are either confusingly executed, or nowhere in the actual comic. Here, there’s another problem. Most of the info is there if you want it, but you have to plow through what feels like dozens of new characters, an arbitrary framing device, and the assumption you’re intimately familiar with some of the more obscure elements of Claremont’s X-canon.

Irritatingly, a story that continues the Alexei Vazhin plot from the old days would’ve been a welcome gift to longtime fans. Likewise, the full story behind Tullamore Voge (who, as goofy as he’s portrayed, is clearly a character Claremont’s personally attached real significance to.) Reintroducing them in this context, hinting that Claremont’s considering going in that direction but not delivering…why bother?

Heck, even a story that introduces another Neo and dramatizes a conflict between him and the characters we’ve already met could serve as a means of smoothing some of the earlier wrinkles out. Any story that spells ideas out clearly and gives the reader a reason to care would be welcome.

Technically, I can’t say the story is truly confusing, since I’m able to annotate the various plot points and characters and discern the author’s intent. But, should I have to? Should a story about the X-Men reluctantly doing a favor for Gambit (not a bad idea), that reintroduces some forgotten characters from the past (not a bad idea), and is wrapped up in a fairly tidy bow (not a bad idea, given the concurrent issues of the spinoff) be so complex? Did we truly need a single new character, let alone eight or so? For crying out loud, one of Sole’s flunkies, Manacle, has his own flunkies. Who wants to keep this stuff straight?

It’s not as if the new characters are worthless; there’s just no personality here, no obvious reason why these villains are in this specific story. One of the selling points of the relaunch was the promise of new characters…but who possibly thought so many so fast was a good idea? Just Manacle, on his own, is a strong enough visual to work as a single-issue villain. Sketch, as Silver Age as that premise is, could’ve easily served as the center of her introductory story. Revenant, cruelly forcing Storm to relive the worst traumas of her life—heck, yeah; that’s a story worth its own issue. (Get Barry Windsor-Smith to draw it!) But rushing through it all, so jumbled together, why should anyone care?

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!