Oct 23
Housekeeping
Posted on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 by Paul in Uncategorized
Just a quick note to say that posts are likely to be running behind schedule for the next couple of weeks, so don’t expect annotations on day of release right now.
Hope all ok in your world, Paul. This site and your reviews is one of my small pleasures ever week!
In the meantime, why don’t we all have a debate that isn’t tied to this week’s x-titles. Like, is Havok ever a viable character or is he just always a hapless idiot 🙂
Havok serves a valuable purpose as a hapless idiot. Team books always benefit from the inclusion of characters with terrible opinions.
Yeah, Havok is the ultimate “not living up to his potential” guy. That’s a great foible to play with as a writer, but it’s difficult to watch as readers.
The only time Alex has stood out was in Mutant X, the world with out Scott. Otherwise he is so caught up in the fact he can’t measure up to the ultimate x-man he chokes constantly. My brother is leading a mutant revolution so I can make a speech on mutant humans relations with the avengers, and we know how that turned out.
I think the problem with Havok has to do with how Inferno ended. Alex at first stumbled on the team and almost killed Lorna. But then in issue 223, he saves Maddie and in the succeeding issues acts as her comforter and protector and basically becomes the moral center of the X-Men. But then the decision was made to turn Maddie into the Goblin Queen. And Scott would look bad if Alex was just trying to save Maddie while still remaining loyal to Lorna. so Alex got turned into the Goblin Prince. And his character never really recovered from that. PAD tried to ignore that to make Alex a competent leader on X-Factor but the later writers never forgot.
Both Alex and Lorna have historically been saddled with bad storylines, inconsistent motivation, underwhelming characterization, and more. It’s like they’re perpetually locked into the roles as the third-rate X-Men going all the way back to their initial introductions.
It hasn’t helped that Alex was there for the Outback era and was present when the team utterly fell apart, a low point for the X-Men.
His high point probably did come as part of PAD’s X-Factor, at least until -that- team inevitably fell apart.
The Mutant X period, his later membership during the Chuck Austen run, his time with the Starjammers, his leadership of the Unity Squad, his lingering inversion post-AXIS, even his time on Krakoa — very little of this distinguishes him or is a high note in a long but unillustrious career.
It’s probably telling that he’s so willing to sell out to other influences as “a good mutant” (X-Factor, Uncanny Avengers, X-Factor again) while Scott is usually willing to burn the system down if it gets in his way.
In short, Havoc is a schmuck and if it weren’t for Vulcan, would be the worst Summers brother.
@Michael
I don’t think it’s anything to do with that. That theory assumes that every writer to have written Alex since Inferno has: 1) read those stories, and 2) all had their opinions of Alex influenced in the exact same manner by those stories. That seems really, really unlikely.
The “problem” as I see it, is simply that as Cyclops’s brother, he’s always going to be held up against him, and since Cyclops is the perennial no-nonsense leader of the X-Men, and since we need to have a contrast between the two brothers, Alex gets to be the perennial nonsense guy.
@Moo- it’s not a matter of having read Inferno per se. For example, the Meltdown series’s take on Alex was influenced by Inferno. And John Francis Moore’s take on Alex was influenced by Meltdown. And Howard Mackie’s take on Alex was influenced by John Francis Moore’s (and also by Inferno). And so on.
I dispute any assertion that PAD X-Factor era Havok was not a hapless idiot. That was a whole team of hapless idiots. He fit in well.
Admittedly “gormless schmuck who believes the government’s intentions are pure” and “gormless schmuck who sides with the supervillain” do seem like they should be diametrically opposed character traits.
The PAD X-Factor was a brilliant comic full of dynamic ideas and clever jokes, that somehow turned into an uninspired collection of junk superhero stories in the intervening years. Man, the therapy issue moved me so much I can still remember exactly where I was when I first read it. But it has transmuted into mere exposition over time. How? Surely it isn’t me, it must be the comic that changed.
But I maintain that Havok is a good character that has had the misfortune to have been handled badly more than once. Part of the problem is people keep defining him via Cyclops or Maddie. The former makes no sense, why would he have little brother syndrome if he was raised in another family? The latter is just a mess. Maddie keeps talking about how she’s defined by Cyclops and Jean, which makes Havok some kind of third-time photocopy.
I don’t know, maybe put him in a super-team, but as the lancer, not the leader. I think he would shine.
On a completely unrelated subject, if you have Unlimited, give the current Avengers Academy story a read. The art is amazing. What it does with the scrolling format, via smoke wafts, tentacles and the like, is inspired.
The writing is OK for an Unlimited story, it has Escapade and Emplate in it if you’re a mutie fan. It is a Love Unlimited story, and it’s not subtle about its remit. But the clever scene transitions!
One thing I like about the current iteration of Avengers Academy is how queer, and how horny it is. I mean, literally everything to do with Justin/Kid Juggernaut and/or Aaron/Cap of the Railways just drips with homoerotic tension.
(Meanwhile the Shela/Brielle soap opera is your typical disaster gay young adult romcom, full of yearning, awkwardness, and miscommunication…)
(Seriously, this title is about as close to Archive of Our Own/Wattpad levels of R-rated fanfic as one can get and actually be published by Marvel.)
And picking up on Emplate post-Krakoa, and giving him perhaps the most depth and development he’s had in perhaps ever, is an interesting direction as well.
It’s a shame it’s not a regular print title, but I suspect it would have been cancelled with lightning speed… at least the Marvel Unlimited titles get a lot more leeway to tell longer serialized stories.
That’s the weird thing. It’s SUPERHORNYSUPERHORNYSUPERHORNY-Moon Girl-SUPERHORNYSUPERHORNYSUPERHORNY. It’s good that Moon Girl is still in circulation in some way, but she really doesn’t belong in this comic. Normie Osborn either, he’s also a kid, but he usually looks like a monster so it’s not so glaring.
I did laugh out loud at the final scene which had a full body picture of naked Kid Captain America, give or take one wisp of smoke, for no good reason. Well, for horny, but otherwise no good reason.
I think Havok being written as the hapless himbo is the default setting these days, a nice contrast to his more stoic brother Cyclops.
IMO, the most effective versions of Havok were the result of mind control like X-tinction Agenda, alternate versions (Age of Apocalypse), or being thrust into alternate realities (Mutant X). I lump PAD’s version of Havok into the mind control pile because some time was spent grappling with the ramifications of being a Genoshan Magistrate.
FYI – I think Alex had reverted to being a himbo by the time he appeared in Chuck Austen’s X-Men run.
Alex is a viable character because a writer who wants to use him can choose to make him one. PAD did so in his 1st X-Factor run. His version of Alex was smart enough to think outside the box when dealing with Strong Guy and Random.
But… comedic/ hapless Alex has a use beyond “other leader.” He can be well-meaning but lacking in leadership, resulting in either hijinks or “pulling a Homer.” Alex can also be used as a mutant assimilationist who has a self-loathing side. Not every character needs to be a pure hero or anti-hero, “well-meaning screw-up” is a viable option.
Yeah, but since Fraction and Aja did their amazing magic on Hawkeye, there’s been a trend to make b-listers into joke losers, the flip side of loveable himbos. Black Knight used to be a highly respected Avenger. Scott Lang was a scientist who led the Fantastic Four at one point. Al Ewing is playing with the concept of comic Thor resisting turning into movie Thor, but for a while Thor was starting to take on the drunken oaf persona previously held by Hercules. And he’s an A lister! We are so close to all the male characters becoming himbos and all the female characters becoming gods. It’s overcorrection.
Not dissimilar for how some of the MCU stuff is very snarky and condescending about some superhero tropes.
Matthew Rosenberg’s short Astonishing X-Men run – well, arc, really, it was only a handful of issues – had Havok as a loser desperate to prove himself as a leader. And he did, after a fashion. It was an interesting mix of takes on Havok.
What are you talking about? Matthew Rosenberg never wrote the X-Men. In fact, I’ve never even heard of a Matthew Rosenberg. Sounds like you tuned into some awful alternate Earth. I’m sure it was an awful story best not discussed in polite company.
I also hate how Scott Lang has been portrayed as a lovable loser/joke hero whose primary trait is “ex-con” when he used to be so much more than that. Ditto Dane Whitman, who hasn’t been treated decently in ages, mainly because every writer goes back to “he’s got a cursed sword.” I know Black Knight is a hard concept to promote as a headliner, but it would be nice if he got some respect.
(Though the current status might possibly do the trick..)
The other Mid-tier avenger who has been poorly treated in recent years is Wonderman, the revengers, the pacifist, he should be the happy go lucky adventurer, but now he is angry and guilt ridden.
The pacifist angle is fine. Punching is the primary tool of the superhero, but it’s far from the only one. If anything, it adds more story opportunities. As long as the story isn’t “I’m a pacifist but you’re forcing me to torture you to death over a period of days” stuff.
I like pacifist Wonder Man. He’s indestructible, he has less to risk by trying to talk people down instead of punching them out. And it differentiates him from characters with similar power sets.
Speaking of Avengers Academy: are Billy Connors and Normie Osborn the same age now? How did that happen?
@Alastair- To be fair, writers have written Simon as guilt ridden for decades now. Both Busiek and Stern wrote him as guilt ridden in the early 2000s.
@Skippy- Billy was dead for a few years. But still…
Even weirder, Dylan Brock is now older than Normie even though Dylan was conceived after the symbiote spared Peter’s life after hearing him talk about wanting to see his godson Normie grow up.
Wonder Man absolutely should feel guilty all the time. For being a waste of ink.
I’m more bummed nobody’s made the Black Knight work.
If only because his back story has far too many odd parallels with my own.
Who’s been done more dirty- wonder man or beast?
The Beast, for sure.
Simon may have spent a lot of time being dead, whiny, nuts or incompetent, but Hank was ruined to the point where only a clone with a 40-year-old memory backup was sufficient to reset him back to a semblance of usefulness/heroism.
Well, you can’t really do Wonder Man dirty. It’s impossible. You can only do that to good characters. Wonder Man is crap and he’s always been crap and he always will be crap. Stan Lee created the guy with the intention of killing him off, and he followed through on his intentions. That means at no point during the process did Stan think to himself, “Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t be too hasty here. I could have another hit character on my hands.” And remember, Stan had a pretty decent batting average at the time.
Marvel’s been workshopping Wonder Man for decades. If he were a building, he’d be perpetually covered in scaffolding. From lack of confidence Simon to overconfident and arrogant Simon to generic strongman Simon to guilty Simon, and so on and so forth, and now we’re apparently at pacifist Simon. Dead Simon was the only version that really worked. Wish Marvel could see that, but an IP is an IP, I guess.
@Mark Coale — Beast for sure. He’s a stronger character, for one, and required a heck of a reset move to be redeemed (or at least scoop the problem of Beast Prime under a rug).
For the record, Wonder Man is getting something of a redemptive turn in the AVENGERS ASSEMBLE mini series. He is one of 11 members, but is treated as another veteran member who is a peer of Hercules, Clint, and She-Hulk. Admittedly, he hasn’t done much yet, but the third issue is set to feature him on a mission; the cast is split up every issue.
So far the reoccurring bit in the mini series is people making fun of his film career. She-Hulk considers him easy to read since he was “the most filmed Avenger” so anyone can read his body language and facial features (at least at poker). Julie Power/Lightspeed vaguely mocked his age, saying her dad liked his movies (though as a kid barely a day over 18, anyone over 25 is likely old to her). And in the second issue, Shang-Chi and Living Lightning were making fun of a B-movie series he co-starred in alongside an Arnold Schwarzenegger satire.
Next issue sees him on a mission with Shulk, Julie, and Lightning, so we’ll see how he fares there. I do believe the pacifist era is over, but so is his crazy era. For now.
I like pacifist Simon if only because it’s a nice twist on the character class. (Energy-based flying brick) he’s got everything he needs to be great at disaster response or search and rescue, he can survive all manner of conditions — he’s far more useful helping people instead of punching supervillains. Let’s face it, as a standard superhero he sucks and is generic… but in refusing to fight at least it gives him a relatively rare character trait. And given that his only other useful trait is “action hero / stuntman… and not even a very good one) he needs all the help he can get.
@The Other Michael — my problem with “Pacifist Simon” was that it was usually poorly executed. My major experience with it was in Uncanny Avengers when Simon was refusing to throw a punch when villains were brutalizing his friends, including Wanda. Come on. You don’t throw an Avenger who wants to be a Rescue Hero in endless arcs where things really need to be punched. Then he just looks weak and ineffective. Use him in a story like, say, MacKay’s early arc with the Ashen Combine when the team could have used a guy saving civilians while others hit villains.
But I suppose, “interesting idea, poorly executed” is the understatement of superhero comics sometimes.
In researching a review article for my own Patreon, I was reminded of 1987’s Emperor Doom graphic novel — the story where Doom uses Purple Man to conquer the world. In that story it was Simon who rallied the rebellion, since his powers made him immune. There is absolutely zero percent chance he would ever have so key a role in a major story these days, which is something of a shame.
But, we’ll see how Steve Orlando handles him in AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #3.
Oh, yay, spam. How novel.
Deleted now. It’s been a while since anything got past the spam filter.
Hope you’re doing okay. Whatever we get is always great.
I thought Alex was done well in the Hellions series too. He’s kind of fun as someone who is ostensibly a hero, and who makes vaguely heroic decisions with reasonable intentions but who ends up tragically failing regardless.
Like, he’s in love with and devoted to Maddie, but not only is she leagues more powerful than him, she only seems him as a kind of dull copy of Cyclops. The fact that he seems essentially aware of this, but remains heroically devoted to her in spite of it is both sweet and tragic.
I’m somewhat obsessed with Lorna and Alex as (I think) the only main X-Men who were introduced in between the Lee-Kirby run and the Claremont era. They’ve been around so long but have rarely been handled well.