Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Era Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Era Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 6.1: Voices of Pride | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86) | Chapter 18: X-Factor Part 1 (1986) | Chapter 19: X-Factor – Mutant Massacre (1987) | Chapter 20: X-Factor – Fall of the Mutants (1987) | Chapter 21: X-Factor – Inferno Prologue (1988) | Chapter 22: X-Factor: Inferno (1989)

We’ve now reached the last major stretch of Iceman appearances that hasn’t been reprinted in color anywhere: the run of X-Factor from #41-59. Today, we’re going to cover the first half of this period, which includes the “Judgement War” story, an arc that was incredibly long for its age.

But first….

X-Factor #41 (June 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Arthur Adams

X-Factor go to London to rescue teenage mutant Alchemy, who was kidnapped by trolls who want to use his power to turn things into gold to destroy the British economy.

Alchemy was created by a reader who won the mutant registration contest that Marvel ran during the “Fall of the Mutants” storyline. He’ll go on to make a few more appearances over the years, but will remain pretty obscure. He was finally killed off in Death of X #4 and has not yet appeared in the Krakoan resurrection protocols (though given the heroic circumstances of his death, you’d think he’d have been pretty high up).

The New Mutants are now living with X-Factor, following New Mutants #76. This status quo will barely register in X-Factor and ends with New Mutants #78, when they leave with X-Factor’s students as well. The kids tell X-Factor that while they’re on a mission, they’ll take the de-aged Illyana back to her parents in Russia. Honestly, it’s incredible they’ve kept her this long, given that she doesn’t speak English, none of them speak Russian, and none of them are her family. What exactly was Colossus doing during this whole time anyway? (None of X-Factor bother to tell the Mutants that the X-Men are alive, but they did see Colossus during Inferno so they should already suspect.)

The new living situation affords Boom Boom the opportunity to suddenly develop a crush on Cannonball, which finally ends the minor tease-flirting relationship she had with Iceman. She and Cannonball will continue their relationship well into the late 1990s in X-Force.

In a bit of botched storytelling, this issue ends with Jean exclaiming that baby Chris disappeared in the fight with the trolls (yes, they brought the baby along on the investigation). Next issue it turns out he was just right in front of her.

 

X-Factor #42 (July 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Arthur Adams

X-Factor rescue Alchemy from the trolls. He decides not to join X-Factor, but to continue on to university so he can better learn about molecular chemistry in hopes of improving his powers.

In a bizarre scene, Alchemy learns that his powers work on living beings when he intentionally uses them to turn a dog into gold, killing it. You’d think he might’ve tried on plants first.

And in minor plot advancements – Chris turns out to have the power to generate an unbreakable force field when he’s scared. No one notices it, though.

This two-parter isn’t a particularly memorable story, but it does have beautiful art by Art Adams.

 

X-Men: Legends #3-4 (May-June 2021)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Walt Simonson

X-Factor help their Ship override some bizarre programming that is causing it to attack them, and then fight off Cameron Hodge, who’s been given a new robot body for his disembodied head.

X-Men: Legends was launched as a series where classic X-Men writers could get a chance to write in-continuity stories set in the eras they’re known for, with the intention of tying up loose ends and dropped plots. There really weren’t too many of those left at the end of the Simonsons’ run that weren’t picked up and resolved by subsequent writers, so they made this two-parter that sets up the “Judgement War” story and gives an origin story for the robot body Hodge suddenly appears in during “X-Tinction Agenda.” It turns out Apocalypse gave it to him because he wanted to see him destroy X-Factor, or failing that, make them stronger by forcing them to overcome a more powerful enemy. Apocalypse also told Hodge to take on Genosha, perhaps hoping that would bring the X-Men to finally upend the anti-mutant government there. And Apocalypse finally tells us that it was his plan all along to have X-Factor take his Ship, because he wanted Ship to take X-Factor to the Celestials in the “Judgement War” story, in hopes that by showing them the best humanity had to offer, it would stave off their judgement of the Earth. And indeed, the story ends with the Ship sending them off into space just as happens in the opening of X-Factor #43 and New Mutants #78.

Of course, the Simonsons writing in 2021 now know that Iceman is gay and was therefore in the closet during this era. They don’t give him a lot to signify this, but they do give him a couple moments of his classic team-up with his crush Beast, and then give him a cute little speedo to wear. And Hodge’s narration during the battle seems to confirm his jealousy for Warren.

 

X-Factor #43 (August 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Paul Smith

In the first part of the “Judgement War” story, X-Factor’s ship suddenly takes them to a faraway world in the midst of a devastating civil war between the supposedly physically perfect “Chosen Ones” and the monstrous “Rejects.” The teams gets split up, captured by various rival factions.

Iceman gets hit on the head and captured by Lev, a blonde woman from the Chosen with fire powers.

Meanwhile, Archangel is presumed to be a Reject and captured by the Chosen Ones, and the reverse happens to Jean, who’s suffering severe multiple personality disorder with Madelyne and Phoenix still in her head following “Inferno”. Beast aligns himself with the Rejects, and Cyclops is presumed killed when a Celestial lands on top of him. And wee baby Chris is taken in by the Chosen Ones, who think he’s somehow escaped from their nursery.

Beast gets unnecessarily physically intimate with Bobby and Warren when the Ship takes the team away.

In mid-battle, Bobby is flirting with the Rejects.

 

X-Factor #44 (September 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Paul Smith

X-Factor all begin to figure out their fates in the different factions they’ve landed with. Cyclops escapes death and ends up with a non-aligned faction who explain that the Celestials periodically return to judge the planet’s inhabitants and if they’re found wanting, the Celestials destroy them.

Meanwhile, Iceman wakes up in a medical bay with no memory of who he is and is promptly knocked out by a doctor. It turns out he has developed a plot convenient form of amnesia. Although the “head trauma amnesia” trope was already laughable in the late 1980s, it ends up being important to how we’re going to read Iceman’s arc in this story. The Chosen faction seem to settle on him being a “Dualer,” a subset of the Chosen who appear physically perfect, yet have a second form that appears monstrous.

 

X-Factor #45 (October 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Paul Smith

Archangel is forced into gladiator combat in the Chosen’s arena.

Iceman doesn’t remember anything about himself, but he does recognize something “indomitable” about Archangel when he sees him. Further evidence that Bobby was the sub in that relationship (as if we needed more).

He also gets into a heated fight with one of the Chosen’s aspiring leaders, Lord Rask, which Paul Smith draws with palpable sexual tension.

X-Factor #46 (October 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Paul Smith

The plates continue to spin as the various plot threads move incrementally forward.

Iceman only appears in half a page, where he solicits bets in his upcoming battle against Archangel in the arena.

 

 

 

X-Factor #47 (November 1989)
Writer/Artist: Kieron Dwyer

This is a fill-in issue with a token framing sequence in the ongoing story. Archangel remembers breaking up a gang run by an abusive quasi-priest who forces runaways to sell drugs for him. Iceman does not appear.

 

 

 

 

 

X-Factor #48 December 1989)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Paul Smith

Again, the plot moves incrementally forward. Iceman appears in a one-page subplot where he and Lev simply recount the plot thus far.

 

 

 

 

 

X-Factor #49 (January 1990)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Paul Smith

We finally get to the Iceman vs. Archangel arena fight, four issues after it was first teased!

Iceman sure sits like a gay man.

Amnesiac Iceman kisses Lev while talking about killing Archangel. It’s the first time we’ve seen Iceman make a move on a woman when it wasn’t for show but it’s easily explained away by the strange amnesia he’s suffering.

Beast attempts to break up the fight and free his friends by reminding Iceman how he used to be the little spoon.

 

X-Factor #50 (February 1990)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Rich Buckler

Iceman, Beast, Archangel and the Rejects inspire the Dualers to rise up and join them, while Cyclops frees Jean and baby Chris and brings in the non-aligned group. They all agree that if the incredibly diverse group X-Factor can be friends, then so can the Chosen and the Rejects. Everyone comes together and turns on the Celestials, who are driven back when Jean channels all the power and mind of Phoenix and Madelyne into Scott’s optic beam and blasts them. As a side effect, this cures Jean of having their memories/personalities trapped in her head.

Also, X-Factor learn about baby Chris’ force field power.

Iceman is largely sidelined in the issue, but Lev thanks him for inspiring the revolution by kissing him. Bobby looks incredibly uncomfortable and acts like he doesn’t even remember being attracted to her. Because of course, he’s back in his own mind now.

And so X-Factor head home. Because this is an anniversary issue, we also get a cameo from Professor X, as the team fly past the Starjammer, where he’s being taken care of by Lilandra. He left the X-Men to get emergency medical treatment in Uncanny X-Men #200 (1985) and his only appearances since then had been in UXM #203 and New Mutants #50. He really did disappear for quite a while!

Finally, in a backup strip, Loki tries to recruit Apocalypse into the linewide “Acts of Vengeance” crossover, but it really contributes nothing to the story. Coincidentally, in the Wolverine “Acts of Vengeance” story, Wolverine ends up learning about the Celestials as well.

The “Judgement War” is a fun, if overlong romp. Louise Simonson is clearly trying to hit the “diversity is good” theme hard to make this alien revolution story feel like it belongs in an X-book, even as the X-Factor characters are increasingly sidelined as the story goes on in favor of the one-off aliens we’ll never see again. And of course, we’re getting an importance of diversity story in a book whose main cast are all white people and the humanoid aliens they meet are all also Caucasian. It really muddles the message.

 

Next time: Bobby gets his first actual girlfriend in years as Opal Tanaka makes her debut!

Where to find these issues: None of these stories has been reprinted in color, although they did appear in the Essential X-Factor collection fifteen years ago. Presumably an Epic collection is coming eventually, after which they’ll hopefully find their way to Marvel Unlimited.

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Era Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Era Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86) | Chapter 18: X-Factor Part 1 (1986) | Chapter 19: X-Factor – Mutant Massacre (1987) | Chapter 20: X-Factor – Fall of the Mutants (1987)

Coming back from my hiatus to drop a note on a significant Iceman story that just dropped last month: “Early Thaw,” a short by Anthony Oliveira with art by Javier Garrón that appeared in the Marvel’s Voices: Pride anthology.

Marvel’s Voices anthologies have become a semi-regular event starting in 2020. Each issue spotlights creators from an underrepresented background, generally writing characters in the Marvel stable from that background. Pride is the LGBT special, and it’s chock full of X-Men stories.

Marvel’s Voices: Pride #1 (June 2021)
“Early Thaw”
Writer: Anthony Oliveira
Artist: Javier Garron

In a story set in the X-Men’s early days (we’ll get to when in a minute), Bobby wallows in the isolation and loneliness of the closet upon realizing that his secret crush, Angel, only has eyes for Marvel Girl, and finds a surprising voice of sympathy from Magneto, of all people. It’s a beautiful and relatable story of unrequited love and hope.

Oliveira has a clear objective with this story to make explicit the queer subtext that was always there in the original 1960s comics. He even opens with three panels that directly quote X-Men #14 — the first part of the Sentinels story. As I said when I wrote about that issue, this is barely even subtextual. It’s hard to imagine a heterosexual reading of, um, Bobby helping Warren get dressed and patting down his bare, muscular back and legs. Oliveira uses this triptych to remind the audience that, yes, Bobby has always been gay, and no, it wasn’t an invention of Brian Michael Bendis in 2015.

Above, the opening panels of “Early Thaw.” Below, the original panels from X-Men #14.

Oliveira could have gone even further back, too, but it seems significant to tie the directly to the Sentinels story, which is the first X-Men arc to really deal with mass anti-mutant hysteria, and confront the particular fact that mutants are children that are very different from their parents and are consequently alienated from their families by the closet. In short, it’s the first story that really plays up what mutants are really a metaphor for.

Bobby’s conversation with Magneto is where the story becomes really surprising and interesting. Magneto is on his way to murder Xavier with some missiles, but stops when he stumbles upon Bobby crying in the woods off the estate (that’s actually the N’Garai cairn from X-Men #96 that Bobby’s sitting on). Magneto decides to approach Bobby like a concerned authority figure to ask what’s wrong and Bobby basically confesses that he’s gay and scared. Magneto tells Bobby that even though he’s not queer, he understands why Bobby feels like an outsider because he too has been “different” all his life and he reminds Bobby that both he and the X-Men are working to make “a future less lonely for the different.” The meta note here is that Magneto is explicitly equating being a mutant with being queer, drawing out the theme of these comics for anyone still unclear.

Now, this story has a bit of a continuity conundrum. Aside from the strange wrinkle that Bobby comes out to Magneto fifty years (in publishing time) before he comes out to anyone else, it has to take place after the Sentinels story, which we actually see for a panel. But that story runs straight through to X-Men #18, which ends with Magneto taken away by the Stranger to his home planet. Magneto stays there until Avengers #47, when he finally escapes and begins a story that culminates with the Avengers/X-Men crossover in X-Men #43-45. If you squint, you could just about squeeze the story in between the pages of Avengers #47 and between X-Men #39-40. But that’s not ideal because “Early Thaw” clearly features a very young Bobby who’s still a student at Xaviers’, whereas Bobby turned 18 in X-Men #32, and by this point he’s in a “relationship” with Zelda.

Instead, I propose a pretty radical solution. Despite him having a speaking role on panel, I don’t believe Magneto is actually there in the story. I think this is a desperately lonely teenager, so afraid to come out to his friends and family, that he imagines the only person he can come out to is a man who has literally tried to kill him on several occasions. And there are certainly hints that this isn’t the real Magneto — after all, he’s not the raving lunatic Silver Age Magneto usually is, and he has at least a little of Bobby’s ironic humor. (To be fair, modern portrayals of Silver Age Magneto do tend to play down the raving looney aspects to bring him more closely in line with the modern interpretation.)

In this reading, the idyllic resolution and grandfatherly advice he gets from Magneto is really just Bobby fantasizing about how coming out to his friends might go. If that’s the case then the story fits best right between X-Men #18-19. Bobby would be about 17 years old here.

And yes, either reading would place the story after Bobby time travelled and spent a year or longer in the present and being fully out before being forced back into the closet upon the return trip.

What did you think? Is Magneto really there?

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Era Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Era Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86) | Chapter 18: X-Factor Part 1 (1986) | Chapter 19: X-Factor – Mutant Massacre (1987) | Chapter 20: X-Factor – Fall of the Mutants (1987)

 

The next chunk of X-Men history is largely collected in the X-Men: Inferno Prologue Omnibus, although it’d be a stretch to call most of the stories it collects a prologue to that story.

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of “Fall of the Mutants” Iceman is once again a public celebrity superhero, and this short era plays with that status to give Bobby ample opportunity to not have sex with women.

 

X-Factor #27 (April 1988)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Walt Simonson

X-Factor distributes gifts on Christmas.

The team give a press conference announcing who they are to the world. Rusty, still fleeing justice, appears in a mask.

Iceman replaces the Empire State Building’s spire – destroyed by Apocalypse’s ship in issue #25 – with a fabulous ice Christmas tree. You’d think all that ice might do structural damage, or be a huge public safety risk when it melts.

Cyclops finally sees Madelyne’s televised plea that he find their son from Uncanny X-Men #227, making him feel guilty and blame Jean. Jean also feels guilty and finally tells her parents she’s back from the dead.

We get confirmation that Hank and Bobby share a room in their HQ, which is twice the size of any skyscraper in Manhattan.

 

X-Factor #28 (May 1988)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Walt Simonson

X-Factor’s ship starts behaving oddly until Artie helps the team realize that Apocalypse has left them a trap. The team disables the locks Apocalypse put on the Ship’s AI and removes the bomb he’d hidden on board. “Ship” is a defacto team member from this point forward.

Even though Cyclops is on his way to Dallas to investigate his wife’s death and his son’s disappearance, he turns right around to help X-Factor stop the Ship.

In the subplots, Angel learns that Candy Southern’s been abducted, and that she had been feeding info about X-Factor to Trish Tilby.

And on the final page, we meet a sexually promiscuous young woman we’ll come to know better next issue.

 

X-Factor #29 (June 1988)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Walt Simonson

X-Factor fight off Infectia’s goons.

Infectia is a fascinating creation even if she is pretty one-note. She’s a sexually promiscuous woman whose power can make men become her slaves before killing them. She chooses the name “Infectia” even though her powers have nothing to do with disease (at least in this story they don’t). Basically, she’s a really regressive walking metaphor for AIDS in the 1980s, isn’t she?

Infectia wants X-Factor’s ship for… some reason. It’s not explained. But before she gets back to her story, we have to squeeze in a few adventures.

Meanwhile, Iceman has really taken to performing for reporters, but feels badly when the questions cause the still mentally handicapped Beast stress. Though he seems sympathetic, he doesn’t miss the opportunity to call into question Hank’s interest in Trish Tilby.

 

Strange Tales Vol 2 #18 (September 1988), Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #1-2 (October-November 1988)
Writer: Terry Austin
Artist: Dan Lawlis and P. Craig Russell

After corrupting Dagger and setting her loose on Manhattan, the villain Night calls X-Factor to fight her in a desperate attempt to raise the profile of a struggling new series do something or other. It’s not at all clear why Night wants X-Factor to stop Dagger from carrying out her own attack on New York. It’s crazy to me that they launched the new book with Part 2 of a story, but that’s why I’m not an editor at Marvel.

Cloak and Dagger are teenage superheroes who got their powers after being injected with experimental drugs. This was a second attempt to launch an ongoing series with them, and adding the word “mutant” to the title and featuring X-Factor were transparent attempts to latch the characters onto the popular X-books, though it never really took. Honestly, I’ve always thought the concept behind Cloak and Dagger was incredibly dated and quite a bit racist (the blonde from the good family has light powers and the Black kid from the wrong side of the tracks has spooky darkness powers – at least when Freeform adapted it into a TV show, they swapped their socioeconomic statuses).

Anyway, X-Factor barely contribute to the plot, which ends when Cloak is freed from an unrelated subplot and saves Dagger. Bobby and Hank get a nice little moment reinforcing their special friendship. The gayest thing to mention about these books is that they’re inked by openly gay artist P. Craig Russell, his second time inking Bobby.

X-Factor only appear on the last two pages of Strange Tales #18 and the first two of MMC&D #2, by the way.

 

 

X-Factor Annual #3 (August 1988)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Terry Shoemaker, Tom Artis

X-Factor rescue some of the Moloids from the High Evolutionary’s henchmen, who are sterilizing them as part of his plan to shape the planet’s evolution.

This is X-Factor’s contribution to “The Evolutionary War,” a story that ran through all of Marvel’s 1988 annuals and follows the High Evolutionary’s attempts to rush human evolution to the level of godhood. New Mutants Annual #4 had the team foil the Evolutionary’s attempt to wipe out dangerous mutant powers, and X-Men Annual #12 saw the team help restore the Savage Land.

There’s not much specific to Bobby in the main story, though in subplots, Jean seems to be developing telepathy again, and Apocalypse fights the Evolutionary directly because at first he opposes the “unnatural selection” of the genocide of the Moloids. It seems like a fine hair-splitting to me.

In a backup strip, the kids still on the ship rummage through old photos as a way of catching up readers on the plot, and we get another siting of Bobby in his arms akimbo pose. Major points off for this off-model drawing of Bobby in civvies with glasses, though.

 

Marvel Age Annual #4 (June 1988)
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: John Buscema

Basically a trailer for all the X-Books. Wolverine wanders through Madripoor thinking about the other X-Men teams. We get a group shot of X-Factor on their ship as it passes over Madripoor for an unspecified reason. The biggest plot contribution of this story is it’s the first time we get confirmation that Wolverine knows Jean is back from the dead and X-Factor are their old teammates (at this point, Madelyne Pryor is supposed to have prevented the X-Men from seeing any of the press about X-Factor after “Fall of the Mutants”).

 

 

X-Factor #30-31 (July-August 1988)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Walt Simonson

Infectia attempts to seduce Iceman as part of her plan to steal X-Factor’s Ship, while Cyclops and Marvel Girl ask Freedom Force if they know anything about Cyclops’ missing son.

Iceman takes Beast on the town while Scott and Jean are away. Bobby is reveling in the attention X-Factor is getting since they came out as public mutant superheroes. But Hank suddenly leaves in a huff as soon a woman very unsubtly flirts with him.

Infectia tricks Bobby into rescuing her from a police officer she mutated with her powers. Oddly, even though the entire tension of the plot is that Infectia is seducing Bobby into kissing her and everyone else having to throw obstacles in her way, every time she gets close, he looks downright uncomfortable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, Infectia’s powers are kind of all over the map here. It’s implied she needs to kiss men in order to mutate them, but she also manages to mutate objects with her hands. Maybe it’s just a preference when it comes to men.

Finally, Beast jumps in between Infectia and Bobby and ends up taking the kiss meant for him, and in a super-plot-convenient way, her kiss seems to just weaken Hank while undoing the effects of both Pestilence’s touch and Carl Maddicks’ experiments, bringing back his ape-like form, to Bobby’s dismay.

In the subplots, Destiny relates an unhelpful vision of how Cyclops will find his son, but in retrospect, lines like “the same displacement of place and time subsumes your son” sure seems like unintentional foreshadowing about Cable. And Archangel is investigating Candy’s disappearance by attacking Worthington Enterprises locations, and Nanny and the Orphan Maker make their first appearances.

 

X-Factor #32 (September 1988)
Writer: Tom DeFalco and Louise Simonson
Artist: Steve Lightle

X-Factor stops a group of Xartan aliens disguised as the Avengers who want to use Ship to conquer earth.

Rictor is taking Beast’s injury particularly hard – or he just creeps in to look at the naked Beast in the med-bay. The kids complain about X-Factor’s plan to send them to boarding school, a plot that will be picked up in the X-Terminators miniseries.

In a subplot, Cameron Hodge makes a bargain with N’Astirh to provide him with mutant babies in exchange for protection from “total destruction at your great enemy’s hand.” Functionally, this becomes an immortality charm that has persisted in Hodge to the present.

Sign this was made in 1988: Boom Boom complains that the Ship doesn’t have a CD player and she has to listen to vinyl records.

Where to find these issues: All of these issues are reprinted in X-Men: Inferno Prologue Omnibus, which is getting a new printing in September, except for the Cloak and Dagger story. That story is also the only one not available on Marvel Unlimited.

 

Meanwhile, in the X-Books:

• The X-Men continue letting the world believe them dead, and relocate to Australia, where they fight the Reavers (Uncanny X-Men #229-230); Colossus has an adventure with Magik, who thinks he’s a ghost (#231); the X-Men fight the Brood in Colorado (#232-234); and discover the mutant slave country Genosha (#235-238)
• Wolverine has several adventures in Madripoor under the alias “Patch” in his new solo series, Wolverine Vol 2 #1-3, and in Marvel Comics Presents #1-10; he also fights Wild Child in MCP #51-53, and helps Mariko stop the Clan Yashida in Wolverine: Doombringer.
• The New Mutants grieve the deaths of the X-Men and Doug Ramsey (New Mutants #63-64), Empath and Magma have an adventure in Brazil (#62); Magik fights Forge and Freedom Force seeking answers about the X-Men’s deaths (#65-66); and they have an adventure with Lila Cheney where they meet Gosamyr and Magik’s dark side is unleashed just in time for “Inferno” (#67-70)
• Kitty, Nightcrawler, and Phoenix, grieving the X-Men, form Excalibur in Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn; they fight the Warwolves (Excalibur #1-2), Juggernaut (#3), and Arcade (#4-5)
• Colossus encounters anti-Russian racists in America’s Heartland in Marvel Comics Presents #10-17 (“Colossus: God’s Country”)

Next Time: I may be moving to a biweekly, or even a monthly format going forward, but the next post will cover the Inferno story and its immediate aftermath.

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Era Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Era Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86) | Chapter 18: X-Factor Part 1 (1986) | Chapter 19: X-Factor – Mutant Massacre (1987)

 

The success of the Mutant Massacre kicked off a tradition of annual events across the X-books, though you wouldn’t really call “The Fall of the Mutants” a crossover. Mostly, its a banner that links a three-issue arc in each of the titles where the the swirling darkness that had hovered over the line came to a head. Oddly though, while Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants featured stories that ended in their teams’ ultimate defeats, X-Factor gave the team a huge victory and became a turning point that led to relatively happier stories.

This post covers the X-Men: Fall of the Mutants Omnibus era. If there’s a theme to Bobby’s story in these issues, it’s that he’s emerging as a voice of a distinct kind of mutant pride, in the wake of his big public speech at the end of issue #17. It’s a point of view that really hasn’t been present in the X-Books much at all yet (Angel, Beast, and Iceman being public figures in The Champions, The Avengers, and The New Defenders notwithstanding).

 

Marvel Fanfare #50 (April 1990)
Writer: Jo Duffy
Artist: Joe Staton

Beast and Iceman tell Archangel about the time the rescued a woman from Arcade who had claimed he fathered her child.

This is an old X-Factor inventory story that ran in Marvel Fanfare because, quite frankly, it’s not good enough to run in the main title, and in April 1990, the book was close to being retooled anyway.

The framing device on the story takes place between X-Factor #59-60. The flashback that makes up the bulk of the story has to take place after Angel commits suicide but after Iceman returns, so after X-Factor #17, but Boom Boom is also there, so it has to take place before #17. The official chronologies square this circle by saying that the story takes place between the pages of #17, which kind of strains credulity.

The issue itself also tries to address this by scripting a scene so that Skids and Iceman say the character who looks like Boom Boom is actually Rusty. No really. There’s even a sequence where Boom Boom tosses a time bomb and Skids says it’s a popcorn kernel that Rusty superheated. So, my personal interpretation is that it isn’t Boom Boom at all. Skids and Bobby are correct in identifying Rusty in drag, exploring his feminine side, and the story takes place between X-Factor #17-18.

Anyway, the twist in the story is that the little boy with the wings isn’t Angel’s kid. His mother is a delusional fangirl of mutant heroes and tried to make a mutant child with a combination of radiation and radical animal surgeries. She’s gone (even further) insane from the realization that her son is dying from cancer from the radiation exposure.

But along the way, we do get some scenes of Bobby and Hank being a cute couple again, and getting defensive when called on it.

This issue isn’t collected anywhere yet, nor is it on Marvel Unlimited.

 

 

 

 

X-Factor #18 (July 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson

Cyclops accuses Jean of being both Phoenix and Madelyne and they have a big fight in a story that sort of makes sense if you squint.

Iceman’s still a popsicle from last issue, though he does decide again to take positive action as a mutant to track down the missing Boom Boom.

Meanwhile, everyone’s slowly realizing that Hodge doesn’t have their best interests at heart, which makes you wonder why he’s still around. With Warren dead, who’s paying X-Factor’s bills? Can’t they fire him? Or quit? By the end they figure it out.

Apocalypse tells Angel that the process he’s going to use to give him back his wings is derived from his own malleable cells. That’s right, Apocalypse is putting his DNA inside Angel.

 

 

X-Factor #19 (August 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson

While Iceman, Beast, and Caliban search for the missing Boom Boom, they’re attacked by three of Apocalypse’s Horsemen. Iceman stops the Horsemen by freezing a giant chunk of Central Park under a glacier.

In an uncharacteristic bit of humanity from Marvel Universe bystanders, some normal humans cheer Bobby on for his speech at the end of issue #17.

Apocalypse continues to seduce Angel.

 

X-Factor #20 (September 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: June Brigman

With Iceman and Beast recovering from last issue’s fight, the X-Factor kids decide to try to undo the damage done to Central Park.

Rictor gets upset with Rusty for trying to make Bobby get better by doing a good deed. He says Bobby’s no “Tinkerbell.” He gets so agitated he inadvertently causes his soda bottle to explode. It’s not the last time Rictor will “SPLOOSH!” in a redheaded guy’s face.

Artie seems to be dreaming of hugging Rusty. Leech also seems weirdly happy to climb into bed with Bobby. I know these characters are children, but the storytelling choices are odd here.

The teens succeed in thawing out Central Park, oddly signified by bent trees suddenly standing “straight and free.” Rictor convinces the kids to leave an ice sculpture of Bobby’s pro-mutant speech from #17.

And let’s take a moment to acknowledge that this is the first issue of an X-Book drawn entirely by a woman, guest penciller June Brigman. It may also be the only issue of an X-Book that is both written and drawn by women.

 

Incredible Hulk #336-337 (September-October 1987)
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Todd McFarlane

X-Factor get called in when the now-grey Hulk is spotted in Illinois and mistaken for a mutant.

We actually saw Iceman deciding to go on this mission in X-Factor #20, but the scene plays out differently here. In this issue, Bobby wants to go on the mission to prove he can handle his super-charged powers, even though he’s terrified he’ll be unable. Beast doesn’t appear in this story because he’s still recovering from the battle.

Our story begins when grey Hulk knocks over a building as he’s turning back into Bruce Banner. A bystander named Dick saves Banner from getting crushed and takes him home to recuperate, but also so he can call in X-Factor to claim what he assumes is a bounty on mutants. Although Dick has had confirmed heterosexual relations (he needs the money because he knocked up his girlfriend) there’s a definite queer vibe between them. It sure sounds like Melanie’s been introduced to plenty of Dick’s hunky shirtless “cousins.” Dick probably swings both ways.

Issue #336 has a whole page of X-Factor arguing about how stupid the premise of their book is, but how it’s worthwhile if they just tweak it a little. I’d like to think this is Peter David auditioning for his own run on the book four years later.

Bobby manages to stumble into Bruce Banner on the street by blind luck. He recognizes him from X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #5, but he also met Hulk (not Banner) in X-Men #66, Incredible Hulk Annual #7, and Incredible Hulk #278-279. (Again, more reason for why First Class should be canon!) He ends up capturing the Hulk by encasing him in a glacier.

Once again, Bobby is hiding his face to protect his identity, even though he’s been a public superhero for ages at this point.

Cyclops decides to call in Gamma Base to imprison Hulk, which doesn’t impress Jean or Bobby. Bobby gets a whole page to brood over how bad he feels about helping the government take Hulk. He stops reinforcing the ice on the trip to New Mexico, which lets Hulk briefly escape.

Ultimately, SHIELD turns on X-Factor and tries to arrest them, both because they’re wanted criminals, and to cover their planned murder of Banner. X-Factor and Hulk team up to escape.

Jean Grey gets a nosebleed from using her powers too intensely – I think that’s a first for her.

And this story also features the first appearance of SHIELD Agent Trump, an obvious parody, who makes a few more appearances in David’s Hulk.

 

X-Factor #21-23 (October-December 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema

X-Factor fire Hodge, but he’s already seized the Worthington fortune and control of X-Factor. He arranges for The Right to attack X-Factor at the reading of Warren’s will and kidnap the kids back at headquarters. X-Factor and Boom Boom (returning from the Fallen Angels miniseries just in time to miss being captured) manage to rescue the kids, but Hodge gets away. And in the last panel, X-Factor are teleported away to appear in the big event.

Bobby gets so emotional when Hodge’s betrayal of Warren is revealed that his powers flare up. Hank cuddles him close as he carries him out of the courtroom.

Once again, it’s Bobby who is first to use his powers openly when The Right attacks in order to protect people.

Another parallel between The Right and the 1980s Republicans – the “Smiley” robots seem to be a clear reference to President Reagan’s famous smile.

Poor Rictor repeatedly says it would be better for all of the kids to die rather than be taken custody by the The Republicans Right, and almost takes them all out a couple of times. Someone really should talk to this kid about his trauma.

In the final confrontation, the Right robots (the story is ambivalent over whether they’re robots or humans in big mech suits, though modern appearances have them as AI) slap a big ugly power dampening belt on Bobby, but it turns out that he’s so powerful now it can’t hold back his powers. Actually, it just stops his powers flaring out of control like they had been since Thor #379. Bobby will keep wearing the belt through the end of his time in X-Factor and into Uncanny X-Men before it’s quietly dropped. There’s perhaps something worth noting in the evil Republicans trying to stop Bobby from being so powerful and fabulous by forcing him to wear a chunky, ugly, grey belt, possibly the most hetero fashion accessory imaginable.

In the subplots, Hank has discovered that every time he uses his super strength, he gets dumber, due to lingering effects of Pestilence’s touch in issue #19. And Apocalypse finishes transforming Angel into Death and appoints him leader of his Horsemen.

 

X-Factor #24-26 (January-March 1988)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema

In X-Factor’s contribution to “The Fall of the Mutants,” Apocalypse captures the team and unleashes his Horsemen on Manhattan. Caliban betrays the team and offers himself to Apocalypse in exchange for power to get revenge on the Marauders. The team rally and defeat Apocalypse with the help of Power Pack, they take over Apocalypse’s ship as their new home, and Angel goes off on his own.

X-Factor is the only title to actually have crossovers: Power Pack kill Pestilence and save the Statue of Liberty in Power Pack #35 (Bobby makes a one-panel cameo there). Daredevil helps keep control on the streets during the Horsemen’s rampage in Daredevil #252. And Captain America and his ally D-Man (who, in a bit of nominative determinism, comes out in a 2014 story) stop Famine from destroying America’s farmland in Captain America #339 (Perhaps also worth noting that Bobby has an inconsequential one-panel flashback in Captain America #338, covering the New Defenders’ fight against Professor Power in New Defenders #128-130). X-Factor don’t appear in the latter two issues.

Apocalypse has a long monologue in which he explains that he was the inspiration for various world religions’ gods of war. He explicitly refers to the Hindu goddess Kali-Ma, The Black Mother, as one of his identities, so yes, Apocalypse has been gender queer since his earliest appearances.

Apocalypse flashes a picture of Ronald Reagan signing the Mutant Registration Act – a recent storyline that had culminated in Uncanny X-Men #224 – explicitly identifying Reagan and the Republican Party as the foes of mutantkind.

Caliban offers himself to “serve” Apocalypse “body and soul,” in a pair of panels that make his supplication appear faintly sexual. I think he must be able to track more than mutants.

Bobby manages to break out of Apocalypse’s prison simply by turning off the power-regulating belt The Right gave him. That’s correct. The Right’s secret anti-Bobby weapon always had an off button right on the front of it.

Bobby celebrates the team’s win by leaping into Hank’s arms. When X-Factor take over Apocalypse’s ship as their new HQ, Bobby and Hank immediately look for a bedroom they can share. To put this in perspective, the Ship is meant to be about twice the size of the World Trade Centre, so they’re not short on space.

Angel now claims that he didn’t commit suicide. Even though we saw him about to press his plane’s self-destruct button, he claims Cameron Hodge rigged the plane to blow up before he could. This is a drastic rewrite of the end of X-Factor #15.

X-Factor #26 is actually all epilogue to the battle. The public’s attitude toward X-Factor shifts as they realize the mutants saved the city, and even Trish Tilby starts warming to Beast, kicking off their long-simmering romantic subplot (poor Vera). But meanwhile Beast is still getting less intelligent as a result of Pestilence’s touch.

Cyclops has a long torturous monologue in which he says he never really loved Madelyne and only married her because he hoped she was actually Jean. For some reason, this makes Jean super-horny, because she forgives Scott for lying to her about Madelyne and they fuck. Neither is aware that Madelyne just died in Uncanny X-Men #227 after making a televised plea for Scott to find their missing son – they’ll find out next issue.

Bobby and Hank rescued a big-time fashion designer during the battle, and he’s gifted the team with all new outfits, which Bobby is just gushing to show-off at the team’s tickertape parade. Even in pre-Grindr days, the gays always found each other.

But even though that was all epilogue, there’s still two more chapters of epilogue! We’ll cover X-Factor #27 next week, because it’s oddly placed in the Inferno Prologue omnibus. But before that, there’s:

 

Fantastic Four #312 (March 1988)
Writer: Steve Englehart
Artist: Keith Pollard

X-Factor’s tickertape parade gets caught up in an attack from the imposter King of Latveria. When the Fantastic Four and X-Factor refuse to help Dr. Doom reclaim his throne, he double crosses them by kidnapping Beast and the new Ms. Marvel. The heroes stop Doom, and Black Panther allows him to leave in exchange for Crystal’s life.

Not a particularly important story for X-Factor – even calling it a “Fall of the Mutants” tie-in really strains reason – but it keeps Beast’s subplot about his waning intelligence ticking over.

Where to find these stories: All but the Marvel Fanfare issue are available on Marvel Unlimited. They were all collected in X-Men: Fall of the Mutants Omnibus, or if you prefer the TPBs, these issues are all in X-Men: Fall of the Mutants Vol 2.

Next Week: We’ll look at Bobby’s appearances in the “Inferno Prologue” period.

Meanwhile, in the other X-Books: 

• In Uncanny X-Men: Storm hands leadership to Wolverine while she tries to get Forge to return her powers (#220, #223-224); the X-Men find Madelyne in San Francisco, but are forced to fight a Malice-possessed Polaris, and Mr. Sinister debuts (#221-222); the X-Men’s “Fall of the Mutants” story sees them sacrifice their lives to stop the Adversary in Dallas, but Roma brings them back from the dead and makes them invisible to electronic surveillance (#225-227); on their way to Dallas, Wolverine fights the Hulk (Incredible Hulk #340)
• In New Mutants: they fight aliens at a Lila Cheney concert (#55), they meet Bird-Boy and fight the Hellions (#56-58); the New Mutants’ “Fall of the Mutants” story sees them try to return Bird-Boy to the island of the Ani-Mates, where the fight The Right and Doug Ramsey is killed.
• Wolverine teams up with Daredevil to fight Bushwacker in Daredevil #248-249
• Wolverine teams up with Alpha Flight to fight Bedlam in Alpha Flight #52-53
• Mastermold recovers from his fight with Cyclops in X-Factor #13 to fight Franklin Richards in Power Pack #36. Mastermold claims Franklin is one of “The Twelve” but he eventually turns out to be wrong. Blame the corrupted circuits.

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86) | Chapter 18: X-Factor Part 1 (1986)

From here forward, Iceman’s appearances are mostly collected in Marvel’s X-Men Omnibus series, so I’ll be taking them one hardback book at a time.

We kick off this section with “Mutant Massacre,” the first major X-Men crossover. The story was such a commercial success that it spawned an annual crossover tradition in the X-Men office. The overall thrust of the story is that a group of mutants called the Marauders begin hunting down the mutant Morlocks who live in the sewers under New York and slaughter them by the hundreds before the X-Men can intervene. We eventually learn that they were hired to do so by Mr. Sinister, who had caught wind that many of the Morlocks were the product of genetic engineering by someone using his technology, and we eventually learn that that person was the Dark Beast from the Age of Apocalypse. We also eventually learn that Gambit was secretly one of these Marauders but he left once he saw the massacre get started.

But none of that really matters, because the story is structured to keep the X-Men and X-Factor threads completely separate, since the two teams are not supposed to be in contact with each other. So X-Factor, including Iceman, simply bumble into the massacre while trying to rescue Rusty and Artie, who they know are in the tunnels, and do their best to rescue a relative handful of mutants.

The Mutant Massacre is also notable as a turning point where the “grim-n-gritty” trend of the mid-80s really overwhelms the overall direction of the X-Men’s story. Claremont had slowly been dragging Uncanny X-Men in this direction by revisiting the “Days of Future Past” story foretelling the Sentinel conquest of America. But this is a whole other level. Dozens of characters are killed and mutilated on-panel. Fan-favorite characters are written out of the books entirely. What was left of the fun, camp tone of the X-Men is all but dead for years from this point on.

 

X-Factor #10-11, Power Pack #27, Thor #373-374 (November-December 1986)
Writers: Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson
Pencilers: Walt Simonson, Jon Bogdanove, Sal Buscema

X-Factor’s attempt to help the Morlocks is hampered by the fact that they recognize them as mutant hunters from their own advertisements, so no one trusts them. But the team splits up to bring home the wounded and go after the Marauders.

Meanwhile, Trish Tilby reports that Angel is X-Factor’s financial backer. Candy Southern swings by the office to see how Angel is going to manage that, and ends up catching him comforting Jean over Scott’s betrayal, in a scene she perhaps overreacts to. Oddly, she mentions that she’s overlooked his affairs before, but this minor scene with Jean is her limit. Maybe their open arrangement was gender-specific?

Bobby gets blinded in his fight with Prism, which sidelines him for most of the story. X-Factor ultimately manage to save Rusty, Artie, Leech, Caliban, Ape, Tar-Baby (It’s a bad character name, and he’s eventually killed in Weapon X #5, and let’s hope if he’s resurrected on Krakoa, he gets a new mutant name), and Beautiful Dreamer. They also convince another subgroup of mutants to follow them out of the tunnels, but when they learn that they’re the mutant hunters from TV, they sneak out of X-Factor’s base and all of them get murdered by a gang and police officers, except for Masque. Not a great showing all told.

Meanwhile, Apocalypse rescues Plague, and announces a plan to turn her into his horseman Pestilence, then picks up a paralyzed Vietnam War vet that he plans to make into his horseman War. Thus begins Apocalypse’s regular MO of travelling the world and giving mutants makeovers.

And Angel has his wings broken by the Marauders when he attempts to fight them alone. He gets rescued by Thor, who heard from some passing frogs that there was trouble in the sewers (this tied into a then-recent Thor story where Loki turned him into a frog). But the real reason why Thor and X-Factor are interacting so much in this era is simply that the books were written by the wife and husband team of Louise and Walt Simonson.

Lord knows why Marvel thought it was ok to have the story crossover into their children’s book Power Pack, but the Power kids did have a preexisting relationship with Leech and a few of the other Morlocks. Still, one wonders what the kiddie readers must’ve thought of the multiple corpses and murders lovingly drawn into the issue. Bogdanove does his best to keep it light with his usually delightful cartooning, but the chapter is a pretty bizarre tonal clash. This is the first time Bobby meets Julie Power (Lightspeed), who eventually comes out as bisexual when she grows up and is a regular character in Avengers Academy and Runaways.

 

 

X-Factor #12 (January 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Marc Silvestri

While Cyclops and Marvel Girl take care of Angel in the hospital, Beast and Iceman meet Boom-Boom and bring her into X-Factor. Boom-Boom is immediately smitten with Bobby (and boy, is that a pairing I’d like to see more of), but he mostly wants to wring her neck.

X-Factor HQ is bursting at the seams with all the Morlocks the team has taken in. Beast tries to make them feel at home by cooking breakfast for them naked.

Boom-Boom debuted in Secret Wars II #5, where she tried to join the X-Men’s school, but was frightened away when the X-Men attacked her friend, the Beyonder. That story established that she was a 13-year-old runaway fleeing a father who physically abused her when he found out she was a mutant. She’s since fallen in with the Vanisher, who’s using her to commit petty crimes in exchange for a room she shares with three other girls. She wants out, so she calls X-Factor on him.

Boom-Boom instantly sees through Beast and Iceman’s X-Factor disguises because she’s not a moron, unlike literally everyone else in this book. Look, I know I harp on how stupid the core concept of X-Factor is a lot, but it’s a really, really stupid concept that even the characters in the book are constantly complaining is stupid. Simonson eventually gets to drop the idiotic X-Factor/X-Terminators mutant hunters/savior-terrorists bit, but only after it wafts over the book for more than two years.

Bobby, still deeply in the closet, has little sympathy for a victim of child abuse.

Meanwhile in subplots, Apocalypse recruits Autumn Rolfson to be his Famine. She’s a teenager here, but will be the mother of Apocalypse’s teenage son Genocide in Uncanny X-Force in 2010, so the math suggests…

And Jean Grey’s sister Sara and her family disappear after Sara speaks out for mutant rights on TV. This long subplot barely gets addressed during the rest of the book and is finally resolved when we’re told that she was murdered by the Phalanx in X-Men Vol 2 #37.

 

Mephisto Vs. #2 (May 1987)
Writer: Al Milgrom
Penciler: John Buscema

Mephisto Vs was a four-part miniseries where in each issue, he fights a different superhero team, in an effort to capture the soul of one of the members, while “trading up” the souls. In this issue, he fights X-Factor, trading up the Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman for Marvel Girl.

Iceman’s main contribution to this issue is reminding Mephisto that the queer mutant villain Pyro exists.

Mephisto tries to tempt Bobby by saying he could “make men not fear mutants” anymore, but Bobby refuses, saying the cost (one of their souls) is too much.

In between the pages of this story, Angel, who’s had his wings healed by Mephisto, flies off and appears in the lead story of Marvel Fanfare #40. It’s a cute but completely inconsequential story that he’s mostly unconscious through. By the end, Mephisto reverses his spell and Angel is back in the hospital with gangrened wings.

In the remaining chapters, Mephisto trades Jean Grey’s soul for Rogue’s soul while fighting the X-Men (but he makes the X-Men forget that Jean Grey is alive at the end), and then trades up for Thor’s soul while fighting the Avengers. It turns out the whole thing was a sham to trick Hela into reversing a spell that made Thor unkillable, so that she would become preoccupied with Thor and he could eventually get the upper hand over her. It’s a pretty obscure story.

 

X-Factor #13-15 (February-April 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson

Cyclops goes to Alaska to find his wife, but discovers that nearly all evidence of her life in Alaska has completely disappeared, and a redhead’s body is found in the river. He battles a recently returned MasterMold, and buries the redhead he believes to be Madelyne. (The real Madelyne turns up alive in Uncanny X-Men #206 and #215.)

Mastermold’s memory is corrupted but he’s suddenly preoccupied with “The Twelve” – a group of mutants who were supposedly meant to rise to become world leaders. We eventually learn in Uncanny X-Men #-1 that Mastermold was given this programming by a time-travelling Madame Sanctity, who was trying to get the Sentinels to kill the mutants Apocalypse needed to rise to power in “Apocalypse: The Twelve.” That story reveals Iceman is one of The Twelve, so that’s the main relevance to Iceman of these issues.

When Angel refuses to allow doctors to amputate his gangrened wings, someone has him declared incompetent and the procedure is forced on him. We’ll eventually learn it was Cameron Hodge. After Angel wakes, he appears to commit suicide by flying in his private plane and detonating it over the ocean (one may wonder why his plane had a self-destruct button…). As we’ll eventually learn, he was actually rescued by Apocalypse.

The Morlocks, having had enough of X-Factor, return to the sewers.

Iceman doesn’t appear in #13, and barely appears in #14-15. In #15, he suddenly disappears while talking to Beast. He’s off to appear in:

 

Thor #377-379 (January-March 1987)
Writers: Walt Simonson
Penciller: John Buscema

Loki kidnaps Iceman to use him to power a big machine that will bring the cold back to Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, who’ve been suffering without their normal cold weather. But Bobby overpowers the machines, which causes the Frost Giants to go mad and attack Loki. Thor kind of stumbles into the wreckage of the Frost Giants’ attack on Loki’s Castle, rescues Iceman, and takes him back to X-Factor.

Although this is the most attention Bobby’s had in months, it’s still not really an Iceman story, and he barely does anything in it. And yet, it turns out to be consequential for Iceman’s ongoing arc. This story kicks off a subplot of Iceman’s powers flaring dangerously out of control, which continues through the rest of X-Factor and into Uncanny X-Men before being quietly dropped.

This is the first time Iceman meet the queer villain Loki, although he has met Thor before in X-Men: First Class Vol 1 #5 and X-Men Vol 1 #9. Of course, Loki immediately puts him in bondage.

 

X-Factor #16 (May 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson

Iceman doesn’t appear in this issue, which is mostly a Rusty and Skids story. Rusty feels pangs of guilt when he finds out that the sex worker he burned back in issue #1 is now in a hospital in New York seeing a specialist to reconstruct her severely burned skin. He makes a deal with Masque to have him heal her, but when she learns that in return Rusty has to allow Masque to deform him, she demands that Masque undo the deal. She’s left even more deformed, but feels happy, because she feels that she’s found her true calling: proselytizing to the Morlocks about Christianity.

In the other subplots, we learn that Skids fled an abusive father who murdered her mother, Skids learns to control her force field, Rusty gets more confidence about controlling his flame powers, and they start a relationship. We’re also told that Erg is now the leader of the Morlocks, though he doesn’t appear.

This issue really isn’t great as far as how it deals with sexuality. The poor sex worker (Emma LaPorte) has decided she deserved to be mutilated because being a sex worker led her off God’s path. LaPorte never appears again… presumably she was killed in one of the subsequent Morlock massacres, but it’s possible she eventually left the tunnels.

 

X-Factor #17 (June 1987)
Writers: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Walt Simonson

X-Factor stop The Right, a new anti-mutant group, from using teen mutant Rictor to destroy San Francisco, in order to whip up even more anti-mutant sentiment.

A lot happens in this issue. Deep breath.

Thor finally brings Iceman back. Look at how he’s holding Thor in that opening splash. Iceman is suddenly suffering the effects of Loki’s machines, which are rendering him too cold and flaring his powers out of control. Rusty is able to thaw him out by rubbing his fire hands around him.

Bobby has also arrived home just in time for Angel’s funeral – of course, he’s only just finding out about his supposed suicide now. He’s very much on edge through this story and almost accidentally freezes Trish Tilby when she tries to interview X-Factor at the funeral. Leech stops him just in time.

The anti-mutant protests and vandalism at Warren’s funeral would have had contemporary resonance with protests at queer pride events and funerals of people who died of HIV.

Cyclops is upset that the X-Men haven’t come to Warren’s funeral, which begs the question: Were they invited? Has anyone spoken to the X-Men at all? Indeed, if they had, they might’ve gotten the Morlock Healer, who was staying with the X-Men, to heal Angel… Did Scott think to invite Alex and Lorna even? Or the Champions? I know these are all questions that break the book’s stupid, stupid premise, but…

Cameron Hodge is turning into much more of a moustache-twirling villain, giving an anti-mutant speech to Tilby, which is somehow recorded even though in the previous panel the cameraman says Iceman’s ruined the camera… for that matter, how has Tilby not recognized Bobby Drake, who was a public figure in New Defenders? Hodge turns down a request from the Governor of California for X-Factor to stop the X-Terminators from destroying San Francisco with a mutant named Rictor. Bobby overhears and insists that the team go stop Rictor themselves, openly as a team of mutants, to counter Hodge’s anti-mutant campaigning.

Bobby is particularly incensed to find out that the villains are anti-mutant group of humans called The Right. After saving teenage mutant Rictor and San Francisco, he delivers a powerful monologue that gets picked up and broadcast on the news angrily calling for mutant tolerance.

After a few decades of hints in stories, Julio Esteban Rictor came out as bisexual in X-Factor Vol 3 #45 (2009), in a scene that featured the first male/male kiss in a Marvel comic.

It’s hard to ignore that the anti-mutant bigots are called The Right — a clear swipe at the bigoted right-wing of American politics — and that their plan is to destroy San Francisco, the gay capital of America.

In the subplots, Cyclops is now going mad over the number of people who have died on his watch – Phoenix, Maddie, Angel (and unmentioned, his son). Boom Boom is being a brat and Iceman chases her into a closet where a girl named Ariel teleports her away to appear in the Fallen Angels miniseries. Caliban is made an official member of X-Factor/X-Terminators. And the kids start to suspect Hodge is evil when they overhear a phone conversation with The Right.

And, Apocalypse has found his fourth horseman, Death. As we eventually find out, this is Angel, who he saved at the last moment from the exploding plane. Apocalypse has always had a queer fascination with Angel. It’s never been at all clear why he thinks Angel is one of the strong who will survive – after all, his power is just having wings and flapping around. He’d already been beaten near to death and was about to commit suicide. And yet, Apocalypse always describes him in flowery language, like here, where he says, “in his heart smolders a dark anger!”

 

X-Factor Annual #2 (1987)
Writer: Jo Duffy
Artist: Tom Grindberg

X-Factor stop Maximus the Mad from using Franklin Richards to spread his madness to all the Inhumans, and break his hold on Quicksilver in the process. And Jean starts to forgive Cyclops for falling in love with Phoenix.

This issue largely wraps up a West Coast Avengers plot which had Quicksilver suddenly going mad after his wife Crystal cheated on him and abandoned their daughter in the second Vision and the Scarlet Witch miniseries. It’s strongly implied here that Crystal’s behavior was also influenced by Maximus. Quicksilver betrayed the team in West Coast Avengers Annual #1, where they were forced to fight Freedom Force, and again in West Coast Avengers #33-36, which are referenced in this issue. Lord knows what West Coast Avengers readers thought of having that plot resolved in a completely different, unrelated book.

Jo Duffy – who is only the second woman to write a full-length story in an X-Book – tries mightily to make this relevant to X-Factor by drawing parallels between Crystal and Quicksilver’s relationship and Scott and Jean’s, and to point out that the Inhumans now live in the Blue Area of the Moon, where Phoenix died, but honestly, it’s just X-Factor walking through a WCA story. I do appreciate that Duffy manages to squeeze in a whole page of the characters complaining about the whole premise of X-Factor, though.

Iceman’s main contribution to the plot is to complain that he’s afraid to use his powers under his current circumstances, so he’s not much help in the fight.

The Inhumans and X-Factor all act as if they don’t know each other, despite the fact that Medusa was an X-Man in X-Men: First Class #15, and both teams met each other in X-Men: The Hidden Years #16. Cyclops also met the royal family in Uncanny X-Men: First Class #1-2. Of course, those stories won’t be published for 10-20 years…

The official chronologies put this issue between the pages of issue #18, which is unfortunate, as that issue largely retreads Scott and Jean’s fight that they seemed to have resolved here.

Where to find these stories: They X-Factor, Thor, and Power Pack issues are all collected in the X-Men: Mutant Massacre Omnibus, which is getting a new printing later this year. The Mephisto Vs. issue isn’t in there, but it is available on Marvel Unlimited. Unfortunately, MU is missing a X-Factor #12, and #14-17, but they’ll hopefully go online when the new printing comes out. Some of the Thor issues on MU have wonky “modern” recoloring from an old reprint, but the issues seem to be chosen at random.

 

Meanwhile in the X-Books:

• In Uncanny X-Men: The X-Men fight Mojo and welcome Psylocke and Longshot to the team (Annual #10, New Mutants Annual #2); their half of the Mutant Massacre (#210-213), leaves Kitty and Nightcrawler out of commission;  Dazzler joins (#214); Storm fights Stonewall, Super Sabre, and Crimson Commando (#215-216); Wolverine and Dazzler have a spy mission (#228 — published out of order); Dazzler fights Juggernaut (#217-218); Polaris is taken by the Marauders and Havok joins (#219); they seek Dr. Doom’s help to cure Kitty, causing conflict with his arch rivals (X-Men vs. The Fantastic Four #1-4); the Avengers make Magneto finish his trial for his crimes and he’s astonishingly acquitted (X-Men vs. The Avengers #1-4); and the X-Men fight Horde (Annual #11).
• In New Mutants: The kids tend to the wounded from the massacre (#46); flee Magus and get caught in the far future (#47-49); fight transmode virus infected demons in Limbo (#50); they visit Professor X in space, and Storm and Magneto join the Hellfire Club (#51); they fight the Impossible Man (Annual #3); Illyana takes Magneto to Limbo (#52); Sunspot and Warlock join a bunch of other cast-off characters for a dimension-hopping adventure (Fallen Angels #1-8); and a final New Mutants-Hellions battle rounds out Claremont’s run on the second title (#53-54)
• Daredevil fights Sabertooth in the margins of the massacre in Daredevil #238.
• X-Men & Spider-Man #2 brings the miniseries up to the 1980s, as they chase the Marauders in the Morlock Tunnels
• Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1 and Web of Spider-Man #29 has the two heroes have an adventure behind the Berlin Wall and then in Manhattan
• Firestar’s backstory is illustrated in Firestar #1-4

Next Week: The dark turn continues as we head toward the “Fall of the Mutants.”

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86)

 

In 1986, the X-Men franchise was going from strength to strength, and Marvel decided it was time to launch a second spin-off series, featuring the original team reunited for the first time since 1969. So, as we discussed last week, Iceman, Angel and Beast were the last surviving members of the New Defenders’ last mission and disbanded the team in New Defenders #152. Jean Grey was found alive and well at the bottom of Jamaica Bay in Avengers #263 and Fantastic Four #286 (having been replaced by the Phoenix entity in X-Men #101). And Cyclops quit the X-Men after losing a trial by combat for the leader position to the powerless Storm in Uncanny X-Men #201. All these plot threads get drawn together in the launch issue of the new book, X-Factor.

The launch of X-Factor was notoriously difficult. Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants writer Chris Claremont wanted nothing to do with the book, as its premise was unravelling his stories that killed Jean Grey and married off Cyclops — but at least that gives us a set up that keeps the X-Factor separate from the other X-Books for its first few years. Nevertheless, the creators and Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter couldn’t agree on the core concept of the book, leading to multiple hasty rewrites of the first issues and finally the swift exit of the original creative team of Bob Layton and Jackson Guice. And oh boy, does the chaos show in the quality of these early issues.

 

X-Factor #1 (February 1986)
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Jackson Guice

Iceman and Beast are finally moving out of Angel’s house in New Mexico and heading to New York to get on with their post-super-hero lives. Bobby has a job lined up at an accounting firm and Hank has interviews lined up for professorships at a number of universities. Angel is just planning to stay in New Mexico and, I guess, hang out by the pool with Candy Southern. Bobby makes a last ditch effort to convince Angel to form another super group, but he brushes him off. Nevertheless, as Beast and Iceman drive off, Angel tells Candy “there go the best fellows a man could know!”

Right after Hank and Bobby leave, Angel gets a call from Reed Richards, telling him that Jean is alive. Angel rushes back to New York. From there, he calls Scott, who’s been living in Alaska with his wife Madelyne Pryor and their newborn son, to come see her. Scott drops everything and goes to New York without explanation, over the ultimatum given by his wife. It has to be said, Madelyne is being written aggressively naggy here in an unsuccessful attempt to make her the bad guy.

Jean is thrilled to see her old teammates again – particularly because Scott doesn’t tell her he’s a married father and none of the guys tell her either. But after she reads reports of the rise in anti-mutant hysteria, she shames the guys out of retirement. Jean doesn’t want to rejoin the X-Men, because she’s been told they’re currently working with Magneto (as of Uncanny X-Men #200), and even though Cyclops could try to explain what’s going on with them, he doesn’t.

Angel decides to bankroll a new superhero team, but with a ridiculous twist: X-Factor will publicly declare themselves mutant hunters, using that as a cover to rescue and train young mutants. Everyone thinks this is a wonderful idea that couldn’t possibly backfire, but you won’t be surprised to find out it does fairly quickly.

This issue also introduces Cameron Hodge, who serves as X-Factor’s public relations specialist. As we’ll eventually find out, he’s actually a mutant-hating bigot, and the whole “mutant-hunter” gimmick is a deliberate attempt to ramp up anti-mutant sentiment. Angel says Hodge was his college roommate, but he must mean a prep-school roommate, pre-Xavier’s. After all, Warren only briefly attended UCLA after leaving the X-Men and was out as a mutant during that time. Anyway, Hodge’s backstory is that he was always jealous of Warren for his money and good looks and came to hate mutants after Warren came out years later. There is an obvious queer reading into this character.

X-Factor’s first gig is hunting down Rusty Collins, a young pyrokinetic naval officer whose powers flare out of control when his superior takes him to a San Diego brothel and a prostitute tries to have sex with him. He accidentally disfigures her before running away. X-Factor manage to track him down, bring him back to their base and bill his mutant-phobic commanding officer $42,000 for the service. This bewildering turn of events raises a ton of questions: Why was this officer personally paying for the service? Why does he let this private organization just walk away with Rusty rather than turn him over to face justice?

There’s a little fudging with secret identities to make this all work. Since Warren and Hank are two of the best-known mutants in the Marvel Universe at this point, they don’t tend to appear publicly with X-Factor, even though Warren is obviously still the group’s public benefactor. Bobby’s identity was also public knowledge in New Defenders, and he’s fairly cavalier in this issue about changing into his ice-form at his accounting firm. But that doesn’t really become an issue in the story. Future issues are remarkably inconsistent about whether these characters are celebrities or not.

Dumb trivia: This issue is titled “Third Genesis” – a reference to Giant-Size X-Men #1’s title “Second Genesis.” You’d think the New Mutants would’ve been the third genesis, but alas. Strangely, Generation X #1 is also titled “Third Genesis,” editorial having evidently lost count somewhere. There’s also X-Men: Deadly Genesis, about the scratch team formed in the margins of Giant-Size X-Men #1. The first seven issues of X-Men Vol 2 are often packaged as “Mutant Genesis” although that title wasn’t used for any of the stories. And Uncanny X-Men #392, where Jean recruits a scratch team to fight Magneto on Genosha, was titled “From the Ashes of the Past… Still Another Genesis!” Young X-Men #1 was titled “Final Genesis,” and indeed MArvel hasn’t used this title format since.

 

X-Factor #2 (March 1986)
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Jackson Guice

X-Factor fight Tower, who’s been sent to capture Beast by Carl Maddicks, who wants to find a “cure” for his mutant son Artie.

Bobby and Hank have decided to find an apartment together in New York so they can have more privacy, (hmmmmm……) but aren’t having any luck finding a place they can afford on their X-Factor salary.

They decide to go visit Hank’s old “girlfriend” Vera Cantor, who’s had a major personality transplant since we last saw her in New Defenders as the ever patient, mousy girlfriend. She’s wearing a one-shoulder crop top and has a half-shaved head, bragging about listening to alternative music, running a bookstore on St. Marks Street that specializes in “left-wing music and literature from South America.” And if your gaydar isn’t screaming “LESBIAN” at you, you should have it recalibrated. Bobby seems to be flirting with Vera, but his thought balloons assure us it’s mostly just to get a rise out of Hank.

Tower is a fairly obscure character with not much of a backstory, but he’s also pretty queer coded, with his purple and mauve outfit and his repeated comments about Hank’s appearance – he calls him “blue-buns” at one point.

Cyclops finally tries to call Madelyne but finds the number has been disconnected. If this is the first time he’s tried to call her, given that several weeks have passed since he left, you can hardly blame her.

Carl Maddicks was the Secret Empire spy Hank worked with and was seemingly killed all the way back in Amazing Adventures #11. We’re simply told his gunshot wound weren’t fatal. Carl uses his son Artie’s telepathic projection power to learn the secret of the formula Hank used to mutate himself back in that story. He’s hoping to reverse-engineer it so that he can undo mutations. He ends up experimenting on Hank with chemotherapy and radiation that nearly kills him.

 

X-Factor #3 (April 1986)
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Jackson Guice

After subduing Tower, X-Factor rescue Beast from Maddicks and take in his son Artie to train him in his powers and protect him. When the armed guards for the company he’s working for storm his secret lab, Carl Maddicks sacrifices himself to give X-Factor a chance to escape with his son and provide him with safety. And it turns out that Maddicks’ treatment for Beast actually does reverse his mutation back to his original, more human look from the 1960s.

Iceman doesn’t have a lot to do in this issue, but he does make a joke about how Hank’s “girlfriend” is going to take his new look.

 

X-Factor #4 (May 1986)
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Jackson Guice

Tower and Frenzy try to recruit Rusty for their mysterious employer and are thwarted by X-Factor.

Tower again compliments Hank on his new look while they’re fighting at LaGuardia Airport.

Rusty and Hank have an awkward exchange in the X-Factor changeroom where Rusty can’t help but stare at Hank’s body.

Warren is about to tell Jean he has feelings for her when he gets a call from Candy Southern, who needs him to make some decisions for his business. He brushes her off essentially telling her that running the business is her job – not far off from how she was portrayed in New Defenders.

Meanwhile, Hodge sends X-Factor to investigate a supposed mutant at a posh Massachusetts boarding school, but he turns out to be a fraud. The terrified reaction of the student leads Jean to question the effects of their mutant hunter lie.

Frenzy is definitely queer-coded in her appearance, with her black leather fetish outfit and close-cropped hair.

 

X-Factor #5 (June 1986)
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Jackson Guice

X-Factor fight the Alliance of Evil, who are trying to kidnap a power-boosting mutant heroin addict named Michael Nowlan. And in the coda, Apocalypse makes his debut.

We open on X-Factor working out together in their underwear. Bobby makes a crass comment about Jean’s body, which she shrugs at. She’s no longer telepathic, but presumably she remembers he’s gay from the Silver Age and is just being sympathetic.

Meanwhile, Jean again points out the absurdity of the “mutant hunter” gimmick, but the team just brushes off her concerns.

Vera takes Bobby and Hank clothes shopping at a Soho boutique called “Electric Penguins” which is absolutely a lesbian clothing store.

Jean enrolls in night classes in Psychology at Columbia, in a plotline that goes nowhere.

Nowlan immediately sees through X-Factor’s disguises because of his powers, but the Alliance handily defeat X-Factor and capture him and his wife. Incidentally, the “Alliance of Evil” is only given that name on the cover, not in the story itself, where they’re only referred to as the Alliance. Of the other members, Stinger also appears to be somewhat queer coded, with her short pink hair. In a coincidental note, she had a brief friendship with Bobby in Nation X #1 (2009). As of present continuity, she’s in a relationship with Omerta, with whom she’s had a child.

 

X-Factor #6 (July 1986)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Jackson Guice

X-Factor battle Apocalypse and the Alliance of Evil, but the Nowlans are killed and Apocalypse escapes.

Louise Simonson takes over the book and the writing instantly becomes about 50 percent lighter, with fewer enormous blocks of exposition. It’s frankly a huge relief. She’s the first woman writer to be assigned an ongoing X-Men book, a number that, if I’m counting correctly, has over the past 35 years swollen to six total (Marjorie Liu, Kelly Thompson, and Mariko Tamaki, Tini Howard, and Leah Williams are the others — the latter four all since 2018).

Nowlan refuses to expose the connection between X-Factor and the group of mutants who look exactly like them, and the Alliance are too dumb to figure it out on their own.

Jean is directly demanding that Cyclops and X-Factor tell her the truth about what they’re all keeping from her, but Cyclops effectively changes the subject by attacking Angel. Iceman at least calls Scott on it, but no one is willing to tell the truth and it’s evident that all our heroes are pretty rotten.

The story ends in a bizarre anticlimax where Apocalypse just walks away, the Alliance surrender to a handful of cops, and X-Factor mourn the deaths of the Nowlans.

The next issue starts a story that continues basically straight into the “Mutant Massacre” story, so a bunch of guest appearances have to fall here. The Chronology Project places them between issues #7-8, but I don’t see a viable gap in the story there.

 

X-Factor #7 (August 1986)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Jackson Guice

X-Factor battle two mutants suffering from radioactive poisoning, Glow Worm and Bulk.

Beast’s sometimes girlfriend Trish Tilby makes her debut as a reporter covering X-Factor. She interviews Vera on the street and gets a bit of an earful before Hank cuts her off.

The big plot development is that this issue Jean figures out that Scott’s married and tells off the other boys for keeping her in the dark.

Also debuting is Rusty’s eventual girlfriend Skids, but she doesn’t do much more than wear the most 80s outfit imaginable.

 

Iron Man Annual #8 (October 1986)
Writer: Bob Harras
Penciler: Paul Neary

X-Factor try to rescue young reality-warping mutant Willie Evans from Project Pegasus, putting them at odds with Iron Man. They eventually team up to rescue the boy and protect him from himself. In the end, the boy seems to die, but it’s strongly hinted he survives due to his powers.

Evans debuted in Fantastic Four #203 and he was mooted as a potential member of the New Mutants – that issue ends with Mr. Fantastic referring Willie and his father to Xavier’s School. Here, his father says he didn’t think it was a good idea.

Iceman doesn’t get to do much in this issue.

 

X-Factor Annual #1 (October 1986)
Writer/Artist: Bob Layton

Russian diplomats ask X-Factor to visit Russia so they can learn how to hunt mutants better. We learn that the Russians are herding mutants into camps.

When X-Factor are invited to Russia, Bobby makes a crude transphobic joke of the sort that were commonly made about Soviet female athletes in the 1980s.

Bobby gets lured into a trap by an evil scientist promising to set up a rendezvous with an attractive, introverted, female secretary. Well, “In Soviet Russia….”

Later, Bobby appears to straight-up murder the villain, Doppleganger, but Beast reassures him he had no choice. Don’t worry, he survives.

 

 

Amazing Spider-Man #282 (November 1986)
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Penciler: Rick Leonardi

Jonah Jameson hires X-Factor to hunt down Spider-Man, and they accept, because everyone in X-Factor is a moron at this point in continuity.

Jameson makes it clear that he thinks X-Factor are “vultures who are fueling the country’s anti-mutant paranoia,” a reminder that Jameson is meant to be a good journalist who fights for the little guy when not dealing with his bête noire Spider-Man.

Spider-Man is pretty weak from his own ongoing stories, so he doesn’t put up a big fight against X-Factor. In the end, X-Factor decide to give Jameson his money back, telling him that Spidey’s not a mutant so not their responsibility.

 

Marvel Fanfare #32 (May 1987)
Writers: JM DeMattias, Kerry Gammill
Artist: Kerry Gammill

Spider-Man calls in Angel, Beast, and Iceman, as well as the Human Torch, to help him rescue Frog-Man and Captain America from the Yellow Claw. The heroes are arbitrary – Bobby and Warren don’t even have lines in this. Presumably they’re just chosen because they recently had appeared in Amazing Spider-Man and they had dealt with Frog-Man in New Defenders.

This appears way out of publishing order because Angel still has his wings, and this is the last possible break in the story for that to fit.

 

 

 

X-Factor #8-9 (September-October 1986)
Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Jackson Guice

X-Factor try to keep Freedom Force from arresting Rusty in a big fight in Central Park that overlaps with Uncanny X-Men #209.

Once again we open on X-Factor all hanging out in their underwear. Unfortunately, this will be Vera’s last appearance for years — she next crops up in X-Factor #55.

Freedom Force is the old Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, plus Spiral and Spider-Woman. The Brotherhood turned themselves in to the government and work as official mutant bounty hunters in exchange for pardons for their crimes, so they’re kind of like Marvel’s version of Suicide Squad. Freedom Force recognized Rusty from last issue, where he went out publicly without a mask as part of X-Factor’s ruse, because everyone in these early issues is a moron. Mystique also recognizes Angel’s involvement in both groups and leaks the news to Trish Tilby.

The battle eventually gets drawn into the Morlock Tunnels, where the Mutant Massacre has begun in Uncanny X-Men #210. This is the first X-Men crossover, sparking an annual tradition due to its massive success. Though it’s technically a crossover, in order to preserve the separation of the two teams, the Uncanny X-Men issues don’t actually intersect with X-Factor, so we won’t be covering them here, but we will get into the X-Factor issues next week.

 

Where to find these issues: All of these issues except Marvel Fanfare #32 are collected in X-Factor Epic Collection Vol 1: Genesis and Apocalypse. They’re also available on Marvel Unlimited, except for Marvel Fanfare #32.

Meanwhile, in the Mutant world:

• In Uncanny X-Men: Phoenix becomes obsessed with killing the Beyonder (#202-203, Secret Wars II #7-9); the X-Men spend time on Island M and fight the Chief Examiner (Marvel Fanfare #40); Kitty and Wolverine celebrate Thanksgiving with the Morlocks and Power Pack (Power Pack #19) and escort the Power kids to a Lila Cheney concert (Power Pack: Grow Up!) Lady Deathstrike returns and attacks the X-Men (Alpha Flight #33-34); Nightcrawler fights Arcade again (#204); Wolverine fights the newly cyborg Lady Deathstrike (#205); The X-Men fight Hungry for famine relief in Africa (X-Men: Heroes for Hope); Wolverine battles Overrider with Captain America (Captain America Annual #8); Freedom Force attacks Kitty (#206); Rachel hunts down Selene, and Wolverine attempts to kill her to stop her from killing Selene, then the X-Men and Hellfire Club get into a fight with Nimrod in Central Park where Leland and Von Roehm are killed (#207-209).
• In New Mutants: Magneto takes over the school (#35); the mutants have a terrifying encounter with the Beyonder (#36-38); Emma Frost convinces Magneto to merge with the Massachusetts Academy, and then calls in the Avengers to take down Magneto (#39-40); Moonstar goes home (#41); Sam brings Lila home to mom (#42); they battle Empath (#43); they fight Legion (#44); the New Mutants befriend a local mutant who commits suicide after his friends threaten to call X-Factor on him, and Kitty explicitly compares mutants to gays at his funeral — the first time homosexuality is actually mentioned this way in an X-Men story (#45)
• And Nightcrawler went on an inconsequential adventure across dimensions (Nightcrawler #1-4), and Longshot debuted and escaped the Mojoverse in the not originally X-Men related miniseries Longshot (#1-6).

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85)

 

When last we left Bobby Drake, he was feeling very confused and conflicted about his feelings for his teammate Cloud, who was able to switch between being male and female and seemed to have no real preferences, or even understanding of their own gender.

New Defenders #141 (March 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

The green slime thing from New Defenders #132 attacks again, but this time Moondragon and Gargoyle are able to stop it for good.

The green slime’s first victim is Chris Larmouth, the Defenders’ mechanic. When we first meet Chris, he’s sitting alone reading a beefcake magazine, so, yup, another queer in the New Defenders’ support team. Iceman encases him in a block of ice to keep him stable until they can cure him – he stays in that state through the end of the series. Look, cryogenics was a very crude science in the 1980s.

Iceman and Gargoyle have a nice bonding moment as they hang out in their underwear together while under siege. Unfortunately, by the end of he issue, Gargoyle is hung up on Moondragon after they temporarily merge bodies.

 

New Defenders #142 (April 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Beast is forced to become an advocate for mutant rights when his scheduled speech at Fontane College turns into a debate with Senator Kelly over the Mutant Registration Act.

Unusually, there are lots of reasonable, pro-mutant students on campus, and they protest Kelly’s appearance. The Student Council President congratulates Hank and Bobby: “I think it’s great what you’re doing, coming out of the closet, standing up to the big guys.” Bobby squirms and says he’s not comfortable having his personal life described in the group’s press kits, but it’s a little too late to have cold feet now. His identity has been low-level public for a while now.

Bobby and Cloud finally have a talk. Bobby confesses that he’s really into Cloud, but that “there’s no way I can let myself fall hard when I know that somewhere inside you is—is a guy.” Cloud is quick to shut down Bobby’s half-interest, but then he resolves to be a friend to her.

A mutant student, Adrian Castorp, with low level powers that give him a degenerative disorder accuses Hank of being an Uncle Tom with his jokey public persona. He decides that the world is going to hell and decides to commit suicide by cop by attacking Kelly at the debate. The Defenders stop him when Cloud shorts out the mechanical braces that allowed him to move. This is treated like a tragic ending and no one considers that the Defenders could fix or replace them.

In the end, Beast announces he’s forming the advocacy group MONSTER – Mutants Only Need Support, Tolerance, and Equal Rights. I kind of wish we’d seen more of this, to be honest.

 

ROM #65-66 (April-May 1985)
Writer: Bill Mantlo
Artists: Steve Ditko and P. Craig Russell

The New Defenders are among the heroes who show up to the final battle against the Dire Wraiths on Earth.

Iceman doesn’t do anything notable in this story, but it is marginally notable as inker P. Craig Russell is the first openly gay comic book creator to work on Iceman. Still, this is quite far from the best art produced by either Russell or Steve Ditko. Russell is better known for his work on Sandman, Elric, Dr. Strange, and Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde.

 

New Defenders #143-144 (May-June 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Moondragon gives in to the Dragon of the Moon and attacks her teammates, but they fight back and win. Angel is struck blind and Valkyrie and Moondragon disappear in the fight.

Issue #143 has a subplot page of a woman getting out of a submarine and meeting a jogger – this is eventually revealed in issue #146 to be the Atlantean Andromeda. Her actions in this subplot are thoroughly obscure but are meant to be her trying to figure out how to pass on the surface world.

Iceman tries to comfort Cloud, who feels guilty over crippling Castorp back in #142, and it’s a little telling. When Cloud says she doesn’t want to be “twisted and weird,” Bobby responds, “I know how that feels.”

New Defenders #145 (July 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

The New Defenders recover from their battle with Moondragon. Johnny Blaze visits, having undergone a complete personality transplant since losing his powers. Valkyrie returns, asserting Moondragon is still out there. And the mystery of what Cloud is deepens. Meanwhile, that submarine woman is now hooking up with the jogger and cloning his credit cards.

Johnny and Bobby are suddenly great friends, even though they couldn’t stand each other in The Champions. Bobby is positively gushing to see him.

As Johnny leaves to hit the open road, the narrator tells us Bobby is jealous of his freedom (and possibly his ability to grow a beard). What’s trapping you, Bobby?

 

New Defenders #146-147 (August-September 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

The Defenders head to New York to see if a doctor there can cure Angel’s blindness. There, they’re joined by Andromeda and fight the demon Hotspur. Finally, the team’s Defense Liaison Nancy Turpin is revealed to have been Cloud’s sister Seraph in disguise.

Issue #146 opens with Angel flying through the Rockies, guided by Cloud. When they get back home Angel asks Cloud to present as male so as not to raise suspicions with his girlfriend. Candy Southern apparently has no problem with Angel playing around with naked dudes, but ladies are off limits.

Bobby has another charged moment with the now clean-shaven Johnny Blaze before he takes off.

And when the Defenders spend the night at Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, Iceman and Beast naturally share a room.

 

 

 

 

 

New Defenders #148 is a fill-in issue that Iceman doesn’t appear in. It’s a sequel to the Cutlass and Typhoon story in issue #133.

 

New Defenders #149 (November 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Seraph takes Cloud and the New Defenders back to where the Secret Empire originally found her, in an attempt to help Cloud figure out who she really is.

Bobby is annoyed that Andromeda joins the team.

Hank checks in with Vera to half-apologize for constantly running out on her. Nevertheless, he immediately runs out on her.

Um, this happens:

Seraph tells Cloud that there’s a woman who looks just like her, comatose in a hospital. Cloud is initially terrified to confront her, but Iceman gives her a pep talk. Interestingly, when Cloud begs Iceman to take her away, she pledges that she’ll stay a girl forever just for him. Iceman immediately refuses.

Cloud eventually remembers that she was originally just a cloud and that she took the form of two lovers who were caught in a car crash when she tried to warn them of an impending danger. As she begins to remember her origin, the two lovers who’ve been comatose this whole time die.

 

New Defenders #150 (December 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Cloud remembers that she was actually a sentient nebula and that she was sent to Earth to find heroes who could stop a force that was extinguishing stars across the galaxy. The New Defenders team up with an unnamed alien species and a sentient Cosmic Cube to identify the cause of the problem: an alien princess who’d been stricken blind and then somehow attained the power of the Cosmic Cube, and used it to take vengeance on the stars. They heal the girl and return the stars – no word on the billions who died when their suns disappeared, mind you. Cloud leaves the team to become a star again.

And in Cloud’s farewell, we get a very bizarre end to Iceman’s latest unrequited love story. Cloud spontaneously decides that they do indeed love Iceman after all. Yes, they. When Cloud tells Bobby this, it is as both her male and female forms. In fact, the key lines are reserved for Cloud’s male form. “Because of what I thought I was, I couldn’t care enough for you back. Now I know differently… I’ll keep you in my heart Bobby.” Cloud is telepathic, so perhaps now they have a better understanding of why Bobby was so reticent around them. Before they go, they show Bobby an image of the three of them that looks to me like a gay couple with a bored woman standing next to them.

New Defenders #151 (January 1986)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Manslaughter returns and it turns out he’s an agent of the Interloper, an Eternal who wants the Defenders’ help subduing the Dragon of the Moon. They arrive just in time, because Moondragon arrives to kill them all.

Hank tries to comfort Bobby about losing Cloud, and am I reading too much into the way Hank’s finger is caressing Bobby’s cheek here?

Manslaughter surprises all of the Defenders by disguising himself as Candy Southern and planting a big kiss on Warren.

 

New Defenders #152 (February 1986)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

After Moondragon gets a power-up from the Beyonder (who’s on Earth as part of the “Secret Wars II” crossover), she steals Gargoyle’s soul, turning him into a Demon. Valkyrie, Andromeda, Interloper, and Manslaughter sacrifice themselves to kill Moondragon, Demon, and the Dragon of the Moon. Angel, Iceman, and Beast avoid death because they’re needed in X-Factor because they’re busy rescuing Moondragon’s hostages: the original couple Cloud patterned herself after, Candy Southern, and Chris Larmouth, who’s been in cryo-storage since issue #141. As an upshot, Chris and the Cloud couple are healed and Angel gets his vision back, ending those dangling plot threads.

While listing the Defenders’ supposed crimes against her, Moondragon complains that Iceman was cold to her advances, which is the opposite of how their story was written. Bobby rightly tells her she’s crazy, and since she’s possessed by an alien demon, maybe she just doesn’t remember her own story.

Later, when she’s taunting Bobby by threatening the Cloud couple, she notes, “you’ve even developed a fondness for the girl, haven’t you?” I assume she’s being as ironic as she is arch here.

There’s a baffling one-panel subplot of Reed Richards trying to contact the New Defenders. It’s not explained or even footnoted, but it’s part of the story from Avengers #263 and Fantastic Four #286 where Jean Grey was found at the bottom of Jamaica Bay and revived. The Fantastic Four do not trust the X-Men at this point in continuity, so they’re trying to reach Jean’s other former teammates. They finally get through in X-Factor #1.

The survivors don’t actually disband the Defenders in this issue, but given that they’re the only three members standing, it’s not surprising they give up. The wrap-up appears in X-Factor #1, which came out in the same month, but it really should have appeared here.

Elsewhere in the Mutant World (I didn’t do this for the last two chapters, so deep breath as we catch up here):

• Uncanny X-Men #168-175: The X-Men team up with Alpha Flight to fight HYDRA (X-Men and Alpha Flight Vol 2 #1-2); fight Dracula (Annual #6); team up with Thing to fight the Champion (Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7, Marvel Two-In-One #96); Kitty’s has a 14^th birthday party (X-Men Special Edition) and “adopts” Lockheed the dragon, who’s actually a spy for SWORD while Scott meets Madelyne Pryor, who looks a lot like Jean (because she’s actually a clone) (#168); the X-Men go to the Texas State Fair (X-Men at the State Fair of Texas); Wolverine makes Colossus fight the Hulk (X-Men vs the Hulk); Kitty teams up with Spider-Man (Marvel Team-Up #135); the Morlocks debut and Storm becomes their leader (#169-170); Rogue joins and Binary leaves (#171, Marvel Fanfare #24); Wolverine helps Mariko assume leadership of the Clan Yashida and plans to marry her (Wolverine Vol 1 miniseries) but the wedding is called off when Mastermind intervenes and instead Scott marries Madelyne (#172-175)
• Uncanny X-Men #176: Nothing much happens in this downtime issue, but Val Cooper gives a presentation on the mutant threat to the government, that includes this slide of the X-Men with Bobby in this pose:

• Uncanny X-Men #177-180: the X-Men fight nano Sentinels in China (X-Men Gold Vol 1 #1) and fight the Impossible Man (Annual #7); Lilandra joins the Starjammers and the Brotherhood and Morlocks attack the X-Men to get Rogue and Kitty back respectively (#177-178); Caliban tries to force Kitty to marry him, but lets her go (#179); and kicking off a period where writer Chris Claremont effectively treats Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants as one title with story elements and casts flowing directly from one to the other, Kitty escorts Doug Ramsey to the Massachusetts Academy (#180) as the X-Men are kidnapped to appear in:
• Secret Wars #1-12: All of Earth’s major heroes and a group of villains are sent to fight on Battleworld, where Colossus falls in love with another woman and the X-Men begin to work more closely with Magneto
• New Mutants Graphic Novel: While the X-Men were fighting the Brood in Uncanny X-Men 162-167, Xavier recruited a new class of students: Cannonball, Sunspot, the lesbian Karma and the very queer coded Psyche and Wolfsbane (who’ll go on to be a lesbian couple in The New Mutants movie that we all forgot came out in 2020), who fight Donald Pierce in their first adventure.
• New Mutants #1-21: The New Mutants acclimate to the school (#1); fight the Sentinels (#2); find out the Professor’s infested with the Brood (#3 and Uncanny #167); save Stevie Hunter from a stalker (#4); team up with Team America to stop Viper and Silver Samurai, but Karma goes missing (#5-6); join Sunspot’s mother on an archaeological expedition to Nova Roma, where they fight Selene and Magma joins the team (#7-12); Doug Ramsey debuts and the New Mutants have beef with Kitty (#13); Magik joins the team (#14); they rescue Kitty from the Massachusetts Academy, where they fight the Hellions and completely forget about Doug (#15-17) but eventually go to a dance at the Academy (Firestar #2); Rachel Summers debuts, and the New Mutants fight Psyche’s Demon Bear (#18-20); Warlock and Doug join the New Mutants (#21)
• X-Men & The Micronauts #1-4: The X-Men team up with the Micronauts to stop Xavier’s genocidal dark side, in a story that rivals the Power Pack issue above for most inappropriate crossover with a children’s property (aside from genocide, Dark Xavier molests two teenage girl heroes)
• Uncanny X-Men #181-200: The X-Men fight a dragon (#181); Rogue attacks SHIELD thinking that she’s actually Carol (#182); Wolverine scolds Colossus for dumping Kitty and lets Juggernaut beat him up (#183); Selene attacks the newly arrived time-traveler Rachel Summers, who everyone thinks is a lesbian; and Forge debuts (#184); Mystique has Storm meet her in a queer fetish bar to tell her where to find the runaway Rogue, and we see the most direct evidence of Mystique and Destiny’s lesbian relationship for this era (Marvel Fanfare #40); Storm loses her powers while trying to save Rogue (#185); Forge tries to nurse Storm back to health and they fight Dire Wraiths (#186-188); Magma and Rachel fight Selene (#189); Kulan Gath warps Manhattan into the Bronze Age and Magik saves everyone but no one remembers, although her time warp brings Nimrod to the present (#190-191); Kitty Pryde learns ninja stuff in Japan (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1-6) and Logan helps out a noodle shop (Wolverine: Exit Wounds); The X-Men team up with Alpha Flight to fight Loki and learn that Madelyne is pregnant (X-Men and Alpha Flight Vol 1 #1-2); The X-Men fight Magus (#192); X-Men and New Mutants tell campfire stories (X-Men Annual #8); The X-Men fight Thunderbird’s little brother James (#193); Nimrod has his first fight in the present (#194); the X-Men and Spider-Man fight Juggernaut and Black Tom (Marvel Team-Up #150); the X-Men help Power Pack (#195); Professor X asks Magneto to lead the X-Men (Secret Wars II #1); Storm fights Fenris in Africa (#196); they fight Arcade (#197); Storm has an adventure in Kenya (#198); The X-Men and New Mutants have an adventure in Asgard (Annual #9 and New Mutants Special); the Brotherhood becomes Freedom Force and arrest Magneto (#199) in order to put him on trial (#200).
• New Mutants #22-34: Cannonball loses his virginity to Lila Cheney, who dresses him up in fetish gear (Annual #1); Cannonball and Spider-Man fight the Incandescent Man (Marvel Team-Up #149); The New Mutants team up with Cloak and Dagger to fight some drug dealers (#22-25, Marvel Team-Up Annual #6); they fight Legion (#26-28); team up with Dazzler to fight the Gladiators (#29-31); and Karma returns possessed by the Shadow King (#32-34)
• Dazzler #25-42: Dazzler learns she has a half-sister, they go on the run when she accidentally kills someone, and they get into a fight with Rogue and the Brotherhood (#25-28); Dazzler starts getting more success and works on movies (#29-31); fights the Inhumans (#32); investigates mysterious accidents on film and modelling sets (#33-34); comes out publicly as a mutant in her debut movie and suffers backlash (Dazzler: The Movie Graphic Novel); gets a job at a lesbian bar (sorry, an “all-women” club called “Femmes,” where the house band is called “Steel Tuna”) (#35) and a couple other middling jobs (#36-37); teams up with Beast to fight the Gladiators (Beauty and the Beast #1-4) gets some training from the X-Men (#38); has an affair with the Beyonder (Secret Wars II #4); is caught by the bounty hunter OZ Chase, who’s working for the villain Dust, who killed her father, and when she escapes and defeats Dust, she decides to fake her death and go underground (#39-42). The book ends with Beast inviting her to join X-Factor, because that was the original idea before editorial decided to bring back Jean Grey.

 

Where to find these stories: Everything but the ROM issues is on Marvel Unlimited. The New Defenders issues were recently collected in The Defenders Epic Collection Vol 9: The End of All Songs.

Next Week: Bobby Returns to the X-books as X-Factor begins, and the mutant world starts to get dark.

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84)

 

After JM DeMattias left New Defenders, Peter Gillis took over writing duties, and the book continued to lean even harder into attempts at social commentary and questioning sexual and gender roles with a lengthy subplot about Bobby’s relationship with his teammate Cloud. As we’ll see, it has mixed results.

New Defenders #132 (June 1984)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Iceman saves the day when a gamma-irradiated plant-monster attacks the New Defenders’ headquarters.

The story starts with Iceman and Cloud playfully flirt-fighting but Moondragon cuts through the bullshit and assesses the situation correctly. She is a mind-reader, after all.

 

New Defenders #133 (July 1984)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

The Defenders go to San Francisco and blunder into a completely unrelated story about Chinatown gangs and detectives Cutlass and Typhoon. This reads like a terrible backdoor pilot for a series that never launched.

 

 

 

 

New Defenders #134 (August 1984)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

The Defenders are attacked in their home by low-level telepathic assassin Manslaughter.

Before the story begins, Warren cajoles Bobby into watching a women’s aerobics show like a couple of pervs. This was a whole genre of television in the 1980s.

Probably the most notable thing about the issue is the final panel, where Cloud declares her love for a rather confused Moondragon. This kicks off a long story about Cloud’s sexuality and gender that we’ll get into next issue. I’m honestly very surprised that this was allowed in a code-approved book at all in 1984.

 

New Defenders #135 (September 1984)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

While local bigots fume over Angel and the Defenders living above their town, a factory owner hires mutant pyromaniac Blow Torch to burn down his business and kill all the undocumented Mexican women who work there so as to avoid difficult questions from the government. I dunno, that plan seems like it would raise more suspicions than it would quell!

Cloud has a little scene where she worries to herself about all the terribly wrong feelings she’s having for Moondragon.

To be honest, it’s not at all clear to me that Gillis wants us to sympathize with Cloud’s difficult coming out process, or if we’re meant to agree with her assessment that her feelings are “so wrong, so unthinkable!”

 

 

New Defenders #136-137 (October-November 1984)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

The Defenders fight an unnamed Afghan wizard who’s taken control of Gargoyle, believing him to be a demon. The book is called The Defenders, after all. I guess we can’t expect them to be too proactive.

Meanwhile, Cloud has a dream conversation where Moondragon tells her that her feelings for her aren’t wrong. “It can’t be wrong, unless you think it’s wrong–!” Incredibly progressive for 1984!  But then, on the next page, Cloud is suddenly a man, who’s saying “I can love you Moondragon – everything that was wrong is now right!” So close! Moondragon seems less than impressed (again, Moondragon is a lesbian, as established in 2006).

Getting back to Bobby, well, he’s very unsupportive of the suddenly transgender (?? — I’m not sure this is the correct word for Cloud, as we’ll eventually see) Cloud, and he’s being so obnoxious about it that Valkyrie has to put him in his place — directly drawing the thematic link from the transgender experience to the mutant metaphor. Again, this is of a piece with Bobby’s past performative hostility to anything queer and jealousy of anyone who makes moves on women who have shown no interest in him.

New Defenders #138 (December 1984)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

The Defenders recover from last issue’s fight after letting the wizard run off into the mountains for the forest service to find. Gargoyle tells Cloud all about Moondragon’s origin. The Defenders appoint Candy Southern as their leader/manager/CEO.

Cloud freaks out when she spontaneously turns back into a woman. Iceman goes to comfort her, but she rightly points out his hypocrisy by daring him to shake her hand after she transforms back into a man. He freaks out and leaves the room, but he has a moment where he starts to question his response to the situation.

New Defenders #139 (January 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

The Defenders shrug off an attack by Mantis (or was it an illusion from Moondragon?), then team up with Red Wolf to stop some Trolls that are terrorizing a small town. When Moondragon resists the temptation to remove her power-dampening headband, it proves her worthiness and the headband falls off on its own.

Iceman doesn’t get to do much in this issue, but he does spend much of the opening pages hanging out in his underwear with the rest of the team.

Angel develops a never-again-mentioned ability to talk to eagles, but it may just be Moondragon screwing with his mind.

 

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner #3 (January 1985)
Writer: JM DeMattias and Bob Budiansky
Artist: Bob Budiansky

The New Defenders make a cameo appearance listening to Namor give his first speech at the United Nations.

I can’t help but feel that DeMattias is saying editorializing with the word choice he’s used to describe his former characters listening to Namor’s speech.

 

New Defenders #140 (February 1985)
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Don Perlin

Moondragon brings half the New Defenders to investigate a mysterious, racially motivated assault the Midwest.

Ok, this is just an absolute monstrosity of a story, and there’s no getting around it. The villain, Daniel Shepard, is a white teenage boy who is accused of raping his English teacher, an older Black woman. When asked, he only tells people that he had to do it because he wanted to break peoples’ hearts.

The trial brings out an armed neo-Nazi group to protest, which, I guess gives the Defenders something to punch.

Then the victim spends a page describing in detail her assault, only for Moondragon to explain that her memory was false, and that Shepard’s actual assault simply forced her to relive a different traumatic experience from her youth. He did this simply so that he could then exorcise the trauma from her. He then proceeds to exorcise the trauma from everyone else in the courtroom before walking away.

This is presented as a happy ending, never mind that he terrorized a suffering Black woman. Never mind that it seems to imply that simply forgetting about past trauma is a healthy way to overcome it.

It’s not even internally consistent, with Shepard claiming right up to the end that he did rape his teacher and he did it because she was Black. Again, I am baffled how this story made it through the Comics Code, let alone through editorial.

Ugh. Meanwhile.

Bobby flat out tells Hank that the reason he chose not to go on the mission is because he’s uncomfortable around Cloud and her sex-switching. “I get so nervous when she’s a boy—” he says, before cutting himself off. What feelings are being stirred here, exactly?

Moondragon tells Cloud that Cloud’s attraction to her was the result of “subliminal sexual impulses” she was sending out to try to trick members of the team into removing her headband. She specifically mentions Iceman as being one of her targets, which explains his sexual thoughts about her. (Valkyrie is also bisexual, but perhaps she’s more resistant to Moondragon’s powers.)

And we check in with Beast’s girlfriend Vera once again, who spends two pages being upset at being stood up again and with the fact that Beast will, uh “flirt with everything this side of Boy George.” At this point, Vera has been in 20 years of stories about Hank running out on her.

Next week: The New Defenders have yet another gay staffer, Iceman’s confusion over Cloud boils over when we finally learn the real origin, and The New Defenders comes to an end.

Where to find these stories: Everything but the Prince Namor cameo is on Marvel Unlimited. The New Defenders issues were recently collected across The Defenders Epic Collection Vol 8-9. Up to issue #139 was collected in The Essential Defenders Vol 7.

 

Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83)

We now enter a pretty weird era. By 1983, the X-Men were an incredibly hot commodity and it seems there was renewed interest in the old team members. J.M. DeMattias, who was writing the non-team book The Defenders and struggling to find a new take on it, convinced his editors to relaunch it as The New Defenders with a stable lineup of characters. So Iceman and Angel join Beast (already a cast member) along with a fairly random assortment of other Marvel characters. Although not an X-book, it ends up dealing with a lot of mutant concepts by virtue of its cast.

Also, as we’ll see, the book positively drips with queer readings. By 2021, more than half the core members of the New Defenders have officially come out of the closet in print, and this book lays a lot of the groundwork for those stories.

This week, we’ll cover the short period before DeMattias quit the book, including the first Iceman miniseries.

 

Defenders #122 (August 1983)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Don Perlin

Iceman visits the Beast on summer break from college, as Valkyrie, Hellcat and Hellstrom announce they’re leaving the team. Beast decides to try to form a more permanent roster of Defenders.

How much did Hank and Bobby miss each other? Enough that what when Bobby shows up, he tackles Beast and Beast leaps into his arms and kisses him.

Next, Bobby follows Hank and Gargoyle into the bathroom where Bobby, uh, helps Gargoyle lather up.

As Hank boasts about his sexual conquests, Bobby simply notes that he’s not seeing any girls, because of course he isn’t. Then they bump into Hank’s (gender-neutral?) teammate Overmind, and Bobby is simply gushing at how big he is.

Later at dinner, Hank and Bobby are bickering like an old married couple and even team maid Dolly notes how much they “adore each other.” When Vera coincidentally shows up, having been stood up by Beast, she doesn’t even acknowledge Bobby, whom she hasn’t seen since X-Men: The Hidden Years #2, an acknowledgement of how he ghosted her best friend Zelda.

 

Defenders #123-124 (September-October 1983)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Don Perlin

Iceman, Beast, and Gargoyle visit Scarlet Witch and Vision, and get attacked by Harridan, Seraph, and Cloud from the Secret Empire. No one makes any comments about the fact that Cloud is basically just a naked woman, so it seems like Bobby’s growing up.

Meanwhile, Dr. Strange, Hulk, Namor, and Silver Surfer are being told of the prophecy that if they continue working together, they’ll destroy the earth, which leads to next issue’s permanent roster change.

 

New Defenders #125 (November 1983)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Don Perlin

After Mutant Force attacks the wedding of Daimon Hellstrom and Hellcat, the New Defenders team is formed: Beast, Iceman, Angel, Valkyrie, Moondragon, Gargoyle.

When Hank and Bobby come home drunk to find Angel waiting for them, they all decide to dance around in their underwear. Bobby reminisces about them busting into Cyclops’ room together “doing our old Rockettes routine,” and this is a flashback I really need to see.

Later at the wedding, Bobby is a jealous brat when a woman flirts with Warren. During the fight, he gushes over Gargoyle, “that Isaac is really something else.”

Angel recaps what he’s been up to over in X-Men, and the narrator refers to a story that was to run in upcoming issues of Marvel Fanfare to explain his newfound confidence, but that story never ran.

No three straight men have ever held hands this way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Defenders #126 (December 1983)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

The New Defenders squabble over who will be team leader until the giant Leviathan escapes from SHIELD and they work together to stop him. Meanwhile, the Secret Empire uses the distraction to break Mutant Force out of prison.

This issue begins a long-running subplot of both Iceman and Angel mooning over Moondragon, who is interested in neither of them (by 2006, Moondragon would be in a lesbian relationship with the second Quasar, Phylla-Vell). Bobby believes he doesn’t have any chance if Warren is also charming her. This continues his long-running trend of pursuing women who aren’t interested in him. In this case, his thought bubbles seem to suggest his interest is genuine, but this is explained away in New Defenders #140: Moondragon is using her mental powers to seduce all members of the team to try to get them to remove her power-dampening headband.

Angel again refers to an unpublished Savage Land adventure that was supposed to run in Marvel Fanfare but never did.

 

New Defenders #127 (January 1984)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Sal Buscema

Cloud escapes the Secret Empire and asks the Defenders for help but is immediately recaptured.

Meanwhile, Iceman brings Beast, Warren, and Candy Southern to his parents’ house, where he finally tells them he’s still superheroing. It’s not clear when exactly Bobby “came out” to his folks about being Iceman, since he was still keeping a secret identity through the entire run of The Champions. This is Mr. and Mrs. Drake’s first published appearances since the “Origins of the X-Men” backup strip in X-Men #44-46. Mr. Drake says he worried about Bobby getting killed when he found out he was in the X-Men. Presumably, Bobby came out to his folks sometime between the end of the Champions and Bobby’s appearance in Uncanny X-Men #145-146 – although, given that two of the five students at their son’s private school turned out to be publicly known as X-Men should have been a big clue.

Iceman leaves his parents in a state of shock when he transforms into his ice form in front of them. The scene looks like it was meant to be read as a humorous take on an actual coming out, but to be honest, it’s so confused about what Iceman’s parents know and accept already that it’s a bit muddled.

 

New Defenders #128-130 (February-April 1984)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Alan Kupperberg, Don Perlin and Kim Demulder, Mike Zeck

The New Defenders attempt to rescue Cloud from the Secret Empire but are captured. The Secret Empire attempts to brainwash them into killing the New Mutants, but Moondragon successfully blocks the brainwashing and frees them. Meanwhile, the Secret Empire was also planning to launch a satellite that would cause the US and USSR to ratchet up hate for each other and start a nuclear Armageddon, with the hope that they’ll emerge to rule the ashes. The New Defenders stop the satellite, crush the Secret Empire, and arrest Mutant Force.

The villain for this arc is Professor Power, who fought Professor X and Beast in Marvel Team-Up #118 and #124. He blames Professor X for not helping to cure his son (whose body he’s now inhabiting) and plans to get revenge by killing his current and former students. In the end, Moondragon destroys his mind as she tries unsuccessfully to bring back his son’s consciousness. (Nevertheless, Professor Power crops back up a few times, and runs into Iceman again in Spectacular Spider-Man #197-199.

As for Bobby, this arc is mainly notable for continuing the running gag of both he and Angel both being horny for Moondragon. He also casually mentions his father’s upcoming retirement party, trailing the Iceman miniseries.

 

New Defenders #131 (May 1984)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias (plot) and Peter Gillis (script)
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

While delivering a speech at Brooklyn University, Beast is attacked by aspiring villain The Walrus, and appealed to by aspiring hero Frog-Man. Beast, Iceman and Angel – having what must be their worst day – are all beaten by Walrus, who in turn is beaten by Frog-Man. Beast is spared having to give Frog-Man membership in the New Defenders when his dad shows up and drags him home.

This is a really bizarre issue, and it’s most notable for a scene in the Green Room before Beast’s speech where a female student is flirting with Warren and Bobby, and Bobby responds by introducing himself as Beast’s boyfriend Lance. She runs off, causing Hank to worry that she might believe it.

So, maybe this was meant to be hilarious in a Three’s Company sort of way, but isn’t this just Bobby finally being honest?

Valkyrie knows what’s up.

 

Iceman Vol 1 #1 (December 1984)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

Iceman returns home to Port Jefferson on Long Island for his father’s retirement party and has to defend their neighbors when aliens White Light and The Idiot attack.

We’re skipping ahead in the publishing order, but this is where the miniseries fits continuity-wise, as well as thematically given it’s DeMattias’ last swing at the character.

This miniseries seems like it was designed intentionally to be chock full of subtextual hints about Bobby’s sexuality, even as on the surface it’s brimming with Bobby’s supposed lust for his female neighbor, Marge.

When he first meets her, he tells himself he’s in LOVE, and decides to try to impress her. So he makes an ice pole to slide down in front of her. Unfortunately, it’s not strong enough and collapses under his weight. That’s right, Iceman is unable to maintain a stiff pole for a woman.

Later, he encounters a bigoted cop who accuses him of “spreading your filth around this town.” There’s definitely a strong parallel to anti-gay bigotry in the word choices here.

But then we get to something much more direct. After evading the cop, Bobby ices down and gets dressed in a neighbor’s yard. He pauses to reflect on the growing trend of religious extremism targeting mutants in X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (Marvel Graphic Novel #5) and following Dazzler’s coming out in Dazzler: The Movie (Marvel Graphic Novel #12). And then an older woman literally calls him a “sexual deviant.” Seems the old woman did know what she was talking about after all.

Incidentally, this is the issue that establishes that Bobby’s father is Irish-Catholic and his mom is Jewish. Bobby says he went to Hebrew School as a child. He may be joking, but it seems to me he was raised Jewish enough to be bar mitzvahed.

Iceman Vol 1 #2 (February 1985)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

After an argument with his parents, Iceman ends up transported back to 1942, where he meets them as a young couple. There, he’s attacked by Kali, who’s looking for Marge. William Drake gets killed in the battle, meaning Bobby will never be conceived. Well, this issue did come out five months before Back to the Future.

Before going back in time, Bobby has a heart-wrenching soliloquy about how hard it’s been on his parents that he’s a mutant and how he’d “give anything to be normal.”

As soon as he lands in 1942 in his costume speedos, a cop accuses him of wearing some other man’s underwear.

Continuity trivia: Ok, Marvel time aside, something is a bit screwy with the characters’ ages. Bobby says is about to say he was born (or, possibly, conceived) in 1959. That would make him 25-26 as of the publishing date. That’s a little old, considering he was meant to be either Jean’s age or a year younger, and she was 23 when she died in 1980. It would also push all the other original X-Men close to 30. Bobby has still been written as a fairly young college student up to this point. It’s got to be a math error.

 

Iceman Vol 1 #3 (April 1985)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

Now trapped in nonexistence, Bobby has nightmares about his life until the cosmic entity Oblivion offers to restore his dad to life in return for Bobby bringing his daughter, Marge, back to him. Marge doesn’t want to return and strikes Bobby down before her desire to confront her father sends them both back to Oblivion.

Bobby’s dream recap of his life has some interesting points. He sees his parents as infantilizing him, but but also seems to resent Xavier and the X-Men for using him. At one point, he dreams of Xavier wanting to hop on his back and ride him. He just wishes he wasn’t a “freak.”

When we get to the Champions era, he dreams of Hercules picking him up and he exclaims “I love you!” He quickly covers that by saying he meant to say that to Darkstar, and for the first time he seems to recognize that Darkstar was never actually interested in him.

 

Iceman Vol 1 #4 (June 1985)
Writer: J.M. DeMattias
Artist: Alan Kupperberg

Iceman fights back against Oblivion, and his love for his parents leads Oblivion and Marge to make peace of a sort with each other. Oblivion sends him back to earth and he makes peace with his parents.

This is a really weird end to a really weird series. I guess we’re meant to see a contrast between Iceman striking off on his own and Marge just returning to her father’s control. And maybe they’re cosmic beings and beyond such relationships, but the text really suggests that by the end they’ve replaced familial love with romantic love for each other. The sentence “Let us come close… merge… become one…” is uttered.

The peace Bobby makes with his parents over being a superhero doesn’t last. When next we see them in Uncanny X-Men #289, William Blake is a racist and bigot again.

Next Week: Peter Gillis takes over writing New Defenders and Bobby starts chasing after yet another woman… or does he?

Where to find these issues: They’re all on Marvel Unlimited and have been reprinted multiple times. Most recently, they were all collected in Defenders Epic Collection Vol 8: The New Defenders. They’re also split across The Essential Defenders Vol 6  & Vol 7. A trade paperback called The New Defenders Vol 1 collects everything except the Iceman miniseries. That miniseries was collected in a Marvel Premiere Hardcover edition called X-Men: Iceman.