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| Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum create a classic image! |
Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975)
Publisher:
Marvel
Story/Script: Len Wein
Art: Dave Cockrum
This is where it all began. The X-Men legend. This is where the title began its rise from
obscure Fantastic Four knock-off to Marvel’s flagship franchise. Hugely influential and source material for a
lucrative film series that helped jump-start the idea of “superhero movies” as
we now know the genre-- yet its characters remain
fairly obscure outside the comic book world.
We insiders—damned as we are-- may know how Banshee lost his sonic
scream and chuckle knowingly at the strange concept of Nightcrawler’s being
able to turn invisible in shadow yet have a face that’s always shadowed, but
our moms and dads probably couldn’t tell Wolverine from tangerine if you
spotted them a tree, a juice squeezer and six Hand ninja.
But hoooo baby, they love that singin’,
dancin’ man Hugh Jackman!
Anyway, here we are at the beginning at
last. Giant-Size X-Men #1. Years ago I bought a run of early X-Men from
a friend for the grand total of 20 dollars and the use of my left-handed
outfielder’s glove one day in P.E. In
return I had X-Men numbers 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 107 and 112. And I read them. I took them to school, passed them around to
my friends and we read them until they were wrinkled and puckered at the
staples. Take that, graded mint
collectors! But I didn’t have Giant-Size
X-Men #1 and by the time I realized what I had that foolish friend of mine was
on drugs and would rather trade his back issues for white powder and green
leaf, neither of which I could easily obtain and transport back into the States
despite possessing diplomatic clearance through customs thanks to a childhood
spent overthrowing Communist-friendly regimes in Central and South
America. I was a precocious child and I
will soon publish my memoirs detailing my cover story as a violin prodigy on a
perpetual world tour that just happened to intersect certain geopolitical
hotspots. That is, if I’m not
assassinated first!
I digress.
Eventually Marvel reprinted this story and I’ve since read it too many
times. And last night, I read it
again. The cover—by Gil Kane and Dave
Cockrum—is a classic image, one copied and homage many times. Led by—of all things—a filthy, atheistic Red
made entirely of metal, including his filthy, atheistic genitalia, the new
internationally stereotyped X-Men burst through the old homogenously white
American X-Men. The cover copy promises
something it calls “Deadly Genesis!” but the title page introduces a story
calling itself, “Second Genesis!” What
the hell? Can’t you people get it
together? Plus, that title sounds a
little like a new herbal shampoo, superior to the previous formulation.
Herbal shampoos—I mean, getting it together
is what this story is all about. I’m
speaking of the super-team. With the
original X-Men missing after an ill-advised trip to a tropical island in search
of an all-powerful mutant, Professor X travels the globe and recruits his new
students. There’s Nightcrawler, who
finds himself pursued by angry Germans—the inverse of what my great-uncle did
to the lousy Hun with one of Patton’s tanks during the Big One. There’s Storm, who flies around topless with
her startling white hair conveniently covering her breasts no matter how many
howling thunderstorms of wind and rain she calls up with her magical mutant
abilities. There’s the aforementioned
Red, a beefy simpleton from a collective farm.
He’s later called Colossus and wonders aloud if his powers are
everything Professor X claims, shouldn’t they belong to the State? Not on my watch, Pinko! Professor X also recruits a trio of ringers,
three characters who had already appeared in Marvel continuity. I’m referring to the Impossible Man, Flash
Thompson and Irving Forbush.
Okay, okay.
He signs Sunfire, Banshee and Wolverine.
We all know Banshee thanks to the many movies made about him in the last
few years, but Wolverine remains an obscure piece of comic book trivia. Sunfire is one of those arrogant, angry,
ultra-traditional “I hate the West” Japanese guys beloved by American comic
book writers. Because you can never have
too much racial animosity in your superhero group where teamwork is at a
premium and cooperation can mean the difference between life or death in heavy
combat, Professor X also brings in Thunderbird, an Apache who beats up buffalo
with his bare hands, feels “ashamed of his people” and has to be persuaded with
the old reverse psychology trick.
This is probably my favorite storytelling
moment in the entire book, because artist Dave Cockrum has Thunderbird walking
away in a huff, only to stop and rub the back of his neck with his hand. It’s reminiscent of my beloved Billy Jack
movies, one of those moments I used to anticipate with my little heart all
a-flutter where Billy Jack finally has had enough redneck bullshit and prepares
to lay aside his pacifism in favor of kung fu mayhem. Wein’s dialogue—Thunderbird says, “Ho-kay…
that does it!” and you can almost hear his slow, husky, exasperated voice—only
makes the moment more Billy Jack-ish.
Billy Jack-ish?
Anyway, the Professor’s mind game works on
the proud, angry Thunderbird and soon the petty squabblers find themselves at
the X-Mansion where Cyclops shows up and starts barking at them like an army
officer and addressing them as “people” in a clipped voice. People, the X-Men
are missing! Only you can save
them! Cyclops is curt and snappish
because he’s a professional and time is of the essence. But despite sharing a flashback with the
newcomers, he fails to explain why they should care about his problems, much
less participate in them.
Take Colossus, for example. Two days ago, Colossus had never heard of
X-Men or capitalism or honkytonk music or Peyton Place. Suddenly, he’s expected to go off on some
dangerous, possibly lethal mission with a group of strangers, all of whom appear
to despise each other and aren’t exactly shy about expressing it, to risk his
metal neck for another group of strangers who, to hear Cyclops explain it, are
just as hateful as the ones he’s with.
If I were him, I’d be heading back to the land of vodka and women with
five o’clock shadows. If I were Storm, I’d
take off my shirt and go flying back to Africa where people worship me as a
goddess. Sunfire has that sweet castle
and kimono-clad wife to go home to, Banshee can score sweet seats to the Tom T.
Hall concert at the Grand Ol’ Opry. If I
had their lives, I wouldn’t be mucking around with this junk, either. As for Nightcrawler and Thunderbird…
Well, if I were either of those guys, I
guess I’d be stuck because their lives seem to have the least purpose, unless
being chased by angry mobs or manhandling buffalo while seething with contempt
for your own tribe count as purposes.
Len Wein was and continues to be a fine
writer and editor—I point you to his run on the original Swamp Thing, various
stories in DC’s horror titles and hundreds of fantastic stories over the years plus his editorship of Watchmen,
but reading Giant-Size X-Men #1, I’m struck by how shrill and unpleasant he
makes his cast. Character conflict is
one thing—the Fantastic Four used to bicker a lot-- but having Professor X
deliberately court this particular group of truly unpleasant people is quite
another. There’s no reason for their
snappish behavior other than the transparent mandate they flaunt “individuality,”
and because conflict adds interest. With
almost 40 years of comic book reading hindsight, I can’t think of a reason why
Wein couldn’t have used a little subtlety or at least balanced out the nastiness
with a little sympathy.
In the classic days of Marvel, Human Torch
would needle the Thing until they came to blows or at least fireballs and angry
threats, but there was always sense of brotherly love beneath it all. And they were likable. You could go to the movies with them, if you
could ever get them to agree on what picture to see. Human Torch has always favored those Judd
Apatow comedies, while the Thing prefers anything with Steve McQueen in
it. At this point in the X-Men narrative
we barely know any of these jokers, but I can’t imagine spending more than a
minute listening to their lame cracks and randomly vicious insults, if even
that long. It’d be like hanging out with
the Let It Be Beatles without ever having experienced A Hard Day’s Night.
Because she only throws one fit—and off-panel
at that-- Storm retains the most dignity, despite wearing a cape, a monokini
and thigh-high go-go boots. By the time
they’re all fighting for their lives against the menace of a living island that
calls itself Krakoa— Shocking twist! The
ISLAND is the mutant, thanks to that catch-all explanation for anything that
doesn’t other make any sense, magi—er—radiation— I was just sick of them as
individuals and collectively. By the
end, I was rooting for the island.
Dave Cockrum’s art on this job isn’t as
slick as the guy he’s imitating, Neal Adams.
Cockrum’s characters pose dramatically but stiffly, lacking the Adams fluidity. Adams’s superpeople might run around with
every muscle in their bodies tensed, but they’re flexible and sinuous. Cockrum’s figures here are dynamic but
awkwardly constructed. They also seem to
be shouting a lot, even when they’re alone—as Cyclops does when he finds
himself on the X-Jet minus his teammates and his powers, or Sunfire when he’s
flying along outside the very same jet well beyond earshot of whoever it is he’s
supposedly addressing. That’s probably
due to their being a bunch of jerks. Cockrum
confines himself to traditional panel shapes for the most part, and the result
is a bit cramped. He didn’t really hit
his artistic stride until the regular series, especially #94 where he and Bob
McLeod teamed up to produce one of the sweetest superhero art jobs I’ve ever
seen, the one that made me want to draw superhero funny books for a living way
back when before life sent me off on a more punk rock filled course that led me
to Japan for some reason.
On the other hand, Cockrum shows the one
thing that really matters—artistic charisma.
Appeal. You want to look at these
pages. And you have to admire the man’s
effort. He even manages to draw the
impossible. There’s a very strange
moment where Cockrum has to depict magnetic waves descending to the ocean floor
as the team finally comes together with a typically silly comic book solution
to the the Krakoa situation. Who knew islands
actually float, kind of like icebergs?
In Cockrum’s defense, it’s easy for a writer like Wein to describe this
kind of thing. I just did it, and I’m a
complete idiot.
But as an artist, I can’t think of another
way to depict visually one of the prime forces of the universe which is difficult
enough to account for in physics theories, much less as the work of a team of
superpowered human beings. It’s best to
think of this panel as symbolic, like an editorial cartoon where the inner
workings of various congressional committees are turned into a visual metaphor
so the kind of idiots who still read newspapers, much less their editorial
pages, can understand how they’re getting shafted this week. Unless you disagree with the artist’s
politics, of course, in which case you need to know enough to write an angry
blog entry about it or at least comment on a political message board thread
about it.
No one can see magnetic force itself, only
its effects, and no one really knows what goes on in committee. It’s all guesswork on the artist’s part. I don’t know what Cockrum’s politics were at
this time. Perhaps a kind of pro-mutant,
anti-sentient island stance that manifested itself in that remarkable
panel.
He certainly made the ridiculous look
ridiculously cool. I miss him.
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