The X-Axis – 17 January 2010
Look below, loyal readers, for this week’s podcast, and also for Al’s appeal to save S.W.O.R.D.. Well, Al’s appeal for you to help somebody else’s appeal to save S.W.O.R.D.. Good book.
Anyway, I may have some unread books still in my pile, but it’s Sunday night and time to run through the books I have read…
Amazing Spider-Man #617 – We talked about this on the podcast. It’s a self-contained issue written by Joe Kelly, focussing on the Rhino. It’s also part of this “Gauntlet” storyline, although so far that’s really just a slow build in the background. The basic idea is that there’s a new cyborg Rhino around, and for some reason he wants to fight the original Rhino to earn the name. But the original Rhino has retired and just wants to be left in peace. It’s flawed – the new Rhino is a sketchy character whose motivations might politely be described as arbitary – but nonetheless it works, because Kelly has a great take on the original Rhino as a peaceful retired villain who just wants to be left alone. Good art by Max Fiumara, and there’s also a nice back-up strip fleshing out the Rhino’s reformation.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin #3 – This may be a Paul Cornell miniseries, but it’s very much one for the continuity freaks. To be fair, he’s trying to sort out Natasha’s convoluted continuity by drawing all the disparate strands together into a single coherent interpretation of the character, and that’s fair enough in theory. But it makes for a rather haphazard story, and the central nanotech plot device is terribly implausible. I’m not wild about Tom Raney’s art on this issue either, though the flashback scenes by John Paul Leon are great. I have to wonder whether there’s much point in doing this sort of story in modern Marvel. Ten to twenty years ago, if they’d done a series like this, it would at least have redefined the character in a way that would have been applied by other writers going forward. In 2010, I work on the assumption that most stories will just be ignored by the next writer, which makes continuity unscrambling a thankless task at best. Besides, I’m frankly not that interested in the minutiae of the Black Widow’s back story; wouldn’t it have been quicker just to sweep most of it under the carpet, rather than sift through it on the page?
Dark X-Men #3 – This week’s other, much better Paul Cornell book. Despite the name, this is basically a Nate Grey miniseries, and it’s turning out to be surprisingly good. Like every other Marvel hero these days, Nate fights the Dark Avengers, and amazingly, it turns out to be quite entertaining. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn’s reluctant ersatz X-Men try to figure out whether they can really be bothered getting involved. Unlike the overly fussy Black Widow story, this is just a high-energy romp taking advantage of the characters’ over-the-top nature. And there’s great work on the art by Leonrard Kirk, who goes for the big, bold approach that something like this requires.
Nation X #2 – Another anthology of short stories with peripheral X-Men characters. Theoretically the linking theme is meant to be the X-Men’s relocation to the island “nation” of Utopia, but actually, only one of the stories is really interested in that – a Jubilee story by C B Cebulski, Jim McCann, Mike Choi and Sonia Oback, which gets some decent material out of the depowered mutant watching from the shore and feeling isolated. John Barber and David Lopez do a fun piece with Martha Johanssen, of all people – yes, the brain in the jar – which could have been set anywhere, but bounces along nicely. Tim Fish’s Northstar story is a visit from his boyfriend, but it’s really just the old “we live in different worlds” schtick – done well enough, but nothing new. And Becky Cloonan turns in a Gambit short which is surprisingly keen to tie in to the character’s current continuity. It’s really the familiar idea of Gambit brooding over whether he deserves to be with the X-Men, but hey, he’s Gambit, and that’s what he does. An above average issue, and if Marvel are going to keep churning out these X-Men anthologies, it’s good to see that at least they’re being used as a vehicle to include stories with more of an indie sensibility.
Psylocke #3 – This is another of those “re-stating the character” minis. And to be fair, Psylocke probably needs one. She’s become hopelessly confused over the years, and to his credit, Chris Yost is trying to cut through the morass of continuity to focus on what defines her now. Actually, this series is doing a lot of the right things in theory. It’s zeroed in on a relatively simple villain from her back story in Matsu’o Tsurayaba, the crimelord who was involved in screwing up her identity in the first place. And it’s got a story which is actually about Psylocke’s character: she goes after him for revenge because she’s looking for closure, she ends up playing the hero and protecting him from somebody else, and she wonders why she’s doing all this. All fundamentally sound, albeit that the plot’s a bit contrived. The big problem so far is that Psylocke herself is a character badly damaged by years of chronic misuse, and thus far she remains rather hard to get a grip on. It’s tough to identify with her. Mind you, her ill-defined character is precisely what Yost is writing about, so perhaps everything will fall into place with next month’s concluding chapter. The other problem is the art, which is way too busy and confused. In fairness, it’s got a lot of energy, but it doesn’t read very well.
S.W.O.R.D. #3 – Henry Gyrich has seized control of the organisation, Abigail Brand is on her way out, and it’s up to the Beast to sort things out. And dare I say it, there are plot problems here – if Beast’s a guest of Abigail, and Abigail’s out of power, why is he being allowed to wander around unsupervised? But leaving that aside, it’s another good issue. Unit gives us his origin story, which is interesting; Death’s Head is in it again; and the art is growing on me, though Hank still looks like a donkey. Unfortunately, the series looks like it may not be long for this world.
Uncanny X-Men: First Class #7 – The conclusion of the “Knights of Hykon” storyline, and by this point I’m really confused about who the audience are meant to be. The Knights themselves are a good solid story for new readers – credible bad guys, with a decent motivation, and they get beaten in a reasonably clever way. But then there’s also an attempt to tie the whole thing into the Phoenix storyline, and I’d have thought that if you were aiming for new readers, you’d want to steer well clear of that whole quagmire. The basic idea is that the Knights are peripherally responsible for the sun flares in Phoenix’s origin story, and so they’re indirectly to blame for Jean becoming Phoenix. Scott blames them for messing up his beloved; Jean is a bit put out that he thinks about it that way. Now, this isn’t a bad idea in theory. But First Class is a continuity-implant series set somewhere among the late-70s Uncanny X-Men stories. And this doesn’t feel like the sort of story you can do as a continuity implant, because the tensions in question were eventually dealt with properly in Uncanny itself, so First Class is setting up a storyline that it logically can’t finish. I’m a bit confused about that. Still, leaving that aside, this is a basic but enjoyable piece of traditional superheroics.
Unwritten #9 – The concluding part of “Inside Man”, as everything in the jail builds to the obligatory climax. In some ways Unwritten is the sort of book that’s most interesting when it’s dealing slowly with its ideas rather than doing the big plot resolutions, but it also knows better than to become a purely cerebral and theoretical exercise in metafiction. This is a good read, and Carey’s done a good job making the pay-off unexpected. Tommy Taylor is a fairly transparent Harry Potter stand-in; the story plays off the tension of taking the elements of his mythos and putting them in a plot for which they’re wholly unsuited. But Unwritten makes that tension dramatic rather than merely gimmicky, and that’s what makes it a superior comic.
X-Men Forever #15 – This issue, we catch up with Storm, who you might recall turned out to be a baddie a few months ago. Since we last saw her, she’s usurped the throne of Wakanda. X-Men Forever is theoretically meant to be the stories that Chris Claremont would have told if he hadn’t left the X-Men in 1991, but I seriously doubt that he’d have taken the character in this direction. For all that Marvel protested otherwise, the short-lived childhood romance between Storm and the Black Panther was an obscure footnote in X-Men history until a couple of years back when Marvel decided to retroactively declare them lifelong lovers, but it’s a central element of this story. Still, the quality of the stories is more important than whether the book strictly adheres to its gimmick, and Claremont is back on form here after the rather shaky “Black Magik” arc, while Tom Grummett’s artwork is excellent throughout.
X-Men Origins: Cyclops – One of those odd stories that’s kind of following continuity and kind of isn’t. So we’ve got the bit where Scott and Alex parachute from the burning plane, but not the bit where he uses his powers to break their fall. We’ve got a framing scene lifted from an early issue of X-Men (the one where Xavier shows Cerebro to Scott for the first time), but a complete dumping of Mr Sinister and the Living Diamond. And we’ve got a re-write of Scott’s first meeting with Magneto, designed to let him confront Magneto alone. The object of all this seems to be to strip out irrelevant junk from Scott’s history, and retroactively position him as the future leader who’ll take his own line rather than meekly following Xavier. If you don’t mind the total disregard for established continuity – and to be honest, many of the changes are for the better, at least if you have Scott’s current role in mind – it’s actually not bad, and Jesse Delperdang’s art is good, clear, strong work. But readers who know Scott’s background already are unlikely to find anything particularly revelatory here.
Could you go back to If Destroyed? the layout and rubbish wood effects are annoying here.
No.
Seriously, this new layout looks much better than If Destroyed’s.
There’s apparently a Black Widow ongoing launching in April, so there’s a chance this origin mini won’t be immediately ignored.
(And fair enough to give her a stab at an ongoing at the time the movie launches. Certainly sounds more sustainable than some of the other launches in April – if they’re indeed ongoings and not one-shots. Firestar, seriously ?)
The wood represents the source of the paper on which is printed your comic books. Similarly, the red/yellow/blue paint splotches remind us in their simplicity of the various colours the comics wizards at Marvel, DC and elsewhere create for us week-in, week-out.
but a complete dumping of Mr Sinister and the Living Diamond
I have two jokes.
1. “Oh, that great prog rock band Rick Wakeman was in for a while?!?”
2. “Oh, ha ha, Emma Frost ha ha same powers creepy ha.”
Amazing Spider-Man 617! Yes! Oddly similar to the Sandman story, mm?
And yeah, the women. I’m having a real, genuine problem with the portrayal of women in this comic. Even for a…”cartoon”…these characters are really terrible stereotypes. Michelle and Norah…guys, that’s not right.
(anybody else think for a moment that Betty and Glory had gotten together while reading this issue? No? Just me?
DAMN YOU, RUSSELL T. DAVIES!)
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I didn’t see it as too similar to the Sandman story – Sandy’s still committing a crime, although he thinks he isn’t. Michelle is a bit of a ‘feisty’ stereotype, but I quite like what they’re doing with Norah – she’s putting on a good show but she’s a bit messed up by the Norman thing. I think they’re giving her more of a personality than they’ve given a lot of the other girls.
Yeah, the women in ASM devolved into Chuck Austen-level crassness a while back. It’s really, really horrible.
I like how Cornell is using song titles to describe the characters. All Beatles songs in Dark X-Men #1, Rolling Stones in #2, and now Kate Bush.
Any comic that removes Jack O’Diamonds from continuity gets full marks in my book.
I have to admit, the whole Storm storyline of this episode and the way that Claremont’s been writing the character up until now seems to be a big middle finger to Marvel over the way they have treated the character in recent years. It is definitely testament to the fact that this is not Claremont’s real post-1991 X-Men plan that he’s writing all the X-Men characters with broad strokes and altering them almost just because he can. It makes the book interesting, but at the same time it is difficult to divorce the book from Claremont venting his frustrations at the editorial establishment.
My biggest problem with X-Men Origins: Cyclops is the age given to Cyclops in the scene where he is first shown Cerebro. I think the book says he was 21 or so, but he couldn’t have been older than his late teens.
I think the new Rhino’s motivation is explained somewhat in the backup story where Dr. Trama tells the original Rhino that she wants to examine his physiology and he rejects the opportunity to work with her. The new Rhino keeps ranting about taking the old one’s skin, so presumably Dr. Tama told him he has to kill the original Rhino and bring her his costume in order to be the new Rhino and he bought into it because he’s a stock operatic villain who feels the need for a “right of passage” to kick off his career.
About Nation X: I liked the Martha story and thought the Gambit one was OK, but the Jubilee one felt kind of off – Surge seemed miscast as the voice of authority/conformity and Jubilee’s little speech about how anyone who doesn’t have superpowers and/or live in New York or California is barely alive (I’m paraphrasing) made me wonder if C.B. Cebulski is aware that there are many comic book fans who don’t have superpowers and/or live in New York or California. And I wanted to like the Northstar story, but it felt like Northstar an Aurora swapped personalities and Cyclops was so cartoonishly overcritical (“You let us down again … If you can’t help us make Utopia work we may all be doomed.”) that I thought it was going to turn out to be a dream sequence dramatizing Northstar’s feelings of persecution or something.
I also really wanted to like the Northstar story, but I was almost appalled by how out of character it was. I hesitate to say that, but anyone acquainted with his “source” material would have to agree. He is not an approval seeker, he is not casually prone to love, and Aurora doesn’t at all like that her brother is gay. These are pretty central character traits.
At least it was something different though. And it all looked pretty.
I have little opinion with the Cyclops: Origins except that I am not surprised. Marvel seems to be continuing on their mission to make Cyclops a different guy than he was. Bully for them. Keep him starring in stuff, it will save me money. 🙂
I used to love Marvel’s continuity when I first started reading comics, a villain turning up and everyone reacting made me want to find out about their first meeting.
Now it seems their continuity is so messed up I’m not sure I even care. It’s mentioned in the podcast about new writer wanting to stamp their authority on a book and so they write characters differently or ignore things that have happened in the past. But then what happens to us readers? We accept the new ideas and ignore what we’re told to ignore only for a new writer 5 years down the track to re-write history again and tell us that the original stories are true again and to ignore the previous writer’s stories.
I don’t think continuity has to be a problem but then Marvel need editors to be on the same page and not let writers mess around with characters too much, not unless they’re willing to explain the change in character at a later date.
Angry Midwest:
I am very familiar with the source material, and I quite enjoyed the story. While I thought that the apology in the face of Cyclops’ scolding was off and that Northstar was a lot more open and talkative than he would normally be, I chalk the chatter up to the fact that when you’re dealing with eight pages worth of space to tell a story, the exposition has to go somewhere. I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that Northstar fell “casually” in love with Kyle, though — we didn’t get to see any of their development up to their becoming a couple and we’ve certainly seen Northstar doing hopeless, unrequited crushes before (and I cannot say how glad I am to finally have writers able to get him past that stage!).
Really, if I have any sticking disappointments with the piece, it’s that Hellion didn’t get smacked for throwing around racial slurs, but again, there’s only so much to be done in eight pages.
Eric K says:
January 17, 2010 at 10:44 PM
I like how Cornell is using song titles to describe the characters. All Beatles songs in Dark X-Men #1, Rolling Stones in #2, and now Kate Bush.
Oh is that what he is doing? See, I didn’t like it because I thought he was just trying to have witty one liners like in Nextwave. Except Cornell’s were just rubbish nonsense.
Now that I know they are song titles. That seems like a cool idea.
Wait, Mr. Sinister has been erased from Cyclops’ origin, or was he just elided? Because Sinister is pretty much essential to the last 25 years of Summers continuity…
It’s elided; I asked Stuart Moore about this on Facebook and he read it, and was so baffled by it he decided not to put it in the one shot. The story’s really about Cyclops’ confrontation with Magneto and how his origin informs it, so the Sinister stuff wasn’t necessary.
Honestly, I don’t think almost anybody was characterized well in that story. Aurora was so manic and ridiculous she seemed like a robot. And the way she described Kyle’s relationship with Northstar was so weird it made me laugh. Cyclops was (as previously stated) completely melodramatic, and Northstar was like a giddy little boy. None of his usual arrogance, etc.
In spite of that, I actually didn’t really mind it. It was small and quick, and actually, the quality of this anthology was better than they ever are. (Which is great, because I felt like an idiot for succumbing once again.)
In any case, I definitely agree that it’s about time we see Northstar actually engaged in a relationship with a man. But it’d be nice if it could happen in a better story.
Look below, loyal readers, for this week’s podcast, and also for Al’s appeal to save S.W.O.R.D.. Well, Al’s appeal for you to help somebody else’s appeal to save S.W.O.R.D.. Good book.
Paul — I think that when you end a sentence with an acronym that has its own period, you only use one period, not two. That’s how it’s done stateside, anyhow.
They should have written Deadpool into the series, that would have saved them…
Cable and Deadpool 25
…The beginning, back when Cable first lifted the helpless baby out of her incubator up in Alaska. Wait — You don’t think Cable did that alone, did you? You don’t think he managed to make his way across hundreds of miles, avoiding Predator X and Purifiers without a little assist, do you? Hell no. Cable asked for help from his favorite Merc with a Mouth and now, finally, this action-packed, oversized story can be told…
Urgh. I forsee Deadpool being retconned into all the major events of the Marvel Universe, his fourth-wall tricky shows him to be the nexus of all things…
*trickery, even
My whole reaction thus far to official Gay Boyfriend Kyle is “that guy? Really?” I’m tired of seeing Alpha Flight characters abused. I applaud the whole effort, it just really fell flat for me.
@thorn- Oh, God. You know it’s going to happen, just like one day Emma Frost is going to appear in Giant Size X-men some stupid day.
When you think about it, isn’t having one of Marvel’s only gay heroes in one of Marvel’s first gay love stories act in a completely different manner than he’s ever acted before kind of like saying that nothing about the character matters except that he’s gay?
“What’s Northstar like?”
“He’s gay.”
“Okay, but what does he act like?”
“I don’t know … he acts gay.”
“But what kind of personaility does he have?”
“What difference does it make? He dates other guys. Isn’t that enough?”
@thom I would buy that book. That would be hilarious, to stick Deadpool into the entire of Cable, hitting on Hope, getting slapped away by Bishop. They could have justified it with “bodyslide by two”
@ZZZ I’ve only read Northstar in the Austen era. What *is* his real personality?
Because the best way I’ve heard him described was “Imagine Quicksilver. Now make him a gay Canadian. That’s Northstar.”
Arrogant, speed powers, unstable sister, confusing backstory that combines magic and genetics.
@ZZZ- Well, yes and no. I would normally agree, but this story is carried out with a ton of sincerity and enthusiasm. The writer just obviously has no idea what the character is meant to be like.
@Ton Clarke- Um, that is about it. To his credit, he’s less evil, less crazy, he’s been killed more often, and the magic has been retconned out of his past (at least).
Urgh. I forsee Deadpool being retconned into all the major events of the Marvel Universe, his fourth-wall tricky shows him to be the nexus of all things…
Didn’t he already Quantum Leap into Peter Parker circa Amazing Fantasy #15 during his original series? I’m sure I remember reading that comic.
On a somewhat related note, how is this current Spider-Man storyline different from when Bane sent all of Batman’s villains after him in sequence, just before all that back-breaking silliness? I’m not being (intentionally) snarky; I honestly want to know, as all the descriptions of the Spidey arc seem very similar, and I stopped reading ASM just as Quesada was grinding it into the dirt.
“Imagine Quicksilver. Now make him a gay Canadian. That’s Northstar.”
Very funny.
One element of Northstar’s background that could be used to good effect is the idea that he won fame as an athlete by secretly using his powers, and that he does seem to have more interest in the benefits of non-superhero life. Unlike Quicksilver, I never got the impression Northstar much enjoyed fighting people for a living, but that he was pressganged into it, first by James Hudson and afterwards by his resulting “heroic” reputation.
“Didn’t [Deadpool] already Quantum Leap into Peter Parker circa Amazing Fantasy #15 during his original series?”
Yeah, but it wasn’t AF #15; it was an issue that featured MJ and Norman (or maybe Harry) Osborn, so it was an issue 2 or 3 years into Spidey’s run. (I remember MJ randomly breaking into dance in one scene, and Deadpool cracking on the Osborn hair in another.) Absolutely hysterical issue, one of the highlights of the Kelly run on Deadpool.
Ah, right you are. It spoofed the AF cover though, didn’t it?
Omar:
His sister’s mental disorder had a lot to do with his returns to Alpha Flight as well. But yes, unlike most of the X-Men and most of Alpha Flight, Northstar always had a pretty successful life outside of the spandex and generally had to be dragged back into it. Austen had a decent reason for him going back to the life, I thought (yes, I’m saying something nice about Chuck Austen’s run; mark it on your calenders), while I found Fraction’s reasoning to be pretty half-hearted, particularly given who was chosen as the messenger.
They should start calling those one-shots “X-Men:Retcons”.
@JerryRay: The issue was ASM #47, published in, hm, 1966? Definitely well into Peter’s college years, anyway.
@Suzene: Northstar’s bond with his sister was always curious too, since he’d apparently never met her prior to Hudson introducing them as adults in Department H.
That should have played out differently than Quicksilver’s lifelong overprotectiveness of Wanda, and sometimes did…albeit almost entirely on Aurora’s side of the relationship.
Kelvin Green:
While there are new villains lurking in the wings in THE GAUNTLET and they appeared to be allied to a couple of Spider-Man’s classic rogues gallery, in general neither they nor (presumably) anyone else are behind the return of the many classic villains we’re seeing, like Bane or (in theory) Hush were. So there’s no designed gauntlet prepared for Spider-Man in the series; it’s just the banner under which this particularly rough patch of his life falls.
Omar:
Yeah. I tend to chalk the instant attachment up to my favorite speedster having serious abandonment issues, which I suppose rather fits in with his being orphaned multiple times and not having anything like a stable home life until his early teens. So being shown undeniable proof that he had family — and one who, to his mind, obviously needed protecting — probably caused him to grab on with both hands. Can’t really blame Aurora for telling her brother to go pound sand, though — love the guy, but he was one heck of a brat in his Alpha Flight days.
Adam, thanks for that. The podcast was suggesting that one of the Kraven children was behind the Gauntlet, which made it seem even more similar, but that’s not the case then?
Girl-Kraven and her mother have been indeed lurking around the edges of most of the Gauntlet. But the big difference with the Knightfall-type stories is that they usually show up at the end, after Spider-Man has defeated this month’s villain. They’re not really behind all those “classic” enemies attacking Spider-Man (each time they have their own reasons), but they’re collecting them for some nefarious purpose (probably the “Sinister 666” storyline that has been hinted for a while).
Kelvin: right.
But as JD notes, we could see a royal rumble soon enough.
Let’s see: two women who are obsessed about Spider-Man and Kraven’s legacy for no clear reason, even after all this time since their introduction. The daughter is psycho and spends her spare time tazing Madame Web, because yes. Evil. Ok.
I think it’s been made fairly clear that they’re obsessed with Kraven’s legacy because the girl is his daughter and they’re thus obsessed with Spider-Man because he had something to do with Kraven’s death.
And who wouldn’t enjoy tazing Madame Web?
C’mon. I like Madame Web.
I was actually enjoying Brand New Day up until around the time this whole thing started. It was mostly pretty nice, if not incredible (and three times as expensive as any other monthly book). Some stories weren’t great, but there were more hits than misses.
Not so much lately though. Promising storylines (Lily, the Grey Goblin, Jackpot) were concluded really poorly, the worst of the early arcs (Kraven girl)has actually lead into the main plot (plus the parkour girl is still around, while Mr. Negative and Freak have vanished), characters like Carly and Vin (and May and Jay) have disappeared and been replaced with uninteresting, unstable characters like Michelle and Norah or non-characters like Peter’s cousins.
Overall, I decided a month or two ago that this title definitely didn’t merit the amount of time and money it consumes.
Lambnesio: Oddly enough, this week is the return of Mr Negative, May and Jay; plus Carly is fairly prominent. Probably not reason enough to go back if you weren’t enjoying Gauntlet, just weird timing on your comment posting.
The Quicksilver comparison is pretty accurate, in that they’re both arrogant, with short tempers. It seems to me that Northstar is usually written as being repressed in general but having a lot of anger deep down (both of which fit pretty well with his background as a disgraced athlete and former Quebec-separatist terrorist and with the later addition/revelation that he was hiding his homosexuality for so long). When I’ve seen them in the same book, he’s usually contrasted against Aurora, with her being bubbly and extroverted (in her superheroic personality) and him being dour and introverted. Mind you, it’s not like I’ve read every comic the guys ever been in. There may be precedent for him wearing his heart on his sleeve, but I’ve not seen him written that way before.
Well, it is good that they cut out the bit about Scott breaking his and Alex’s fall by shooting the ground with his optic blasts, since his powers can’t possibly work that way. If Newtonian physics applies Scott’s powers, then his head should have popped clean off his body the first time he unleashed a blast that was actually powerful enough to destroy something. IIRC, his entry in the Official Handbook handwaved it way with some gobbleygook about how his eyes are actually “portals to a non-Einsteinian universe” and that’s why Newton’s laws of inertia go straight out the window.
I’d always assumed that Scott was an older teenager in X-Men #1, but I also recall that Xavier actually left him alone and in charge of the whole school by #10 or so while Xavier (and I am not making this up) was rappelling down the inside of an active volcano while still in a wheelchair during Xavier’s quest to find Lucifer. Man, the sixties were weird.
Ha, Northstar was in the FLQ? Ha ha, Jesus. Thanks for that bit of trivia, ZZZ.
Yup. Until he started feeling guilty about all the bombings and stuff. His official handbook entries tend to include “former terrorist” under occupation, along with athlete, adventurer, etc.
Anyone who hasn’t read the first 24 issues of volume 1 Alpha Flight really ought to. They are great reads, very different from average superhero fair in a number of ways.
Also, I would say a big wedge between Northstar and Aurora is that they were in love with the same person for like 30 issues. I think it illustrates their love-hate relationship alot.
X-Men #1 gives Iceman’s age as sixteen and says that he’s a couple of years younger than the rest of the group (at least the guys, because this is before Jean shows up). So Scott’s around 18 in issue #1.