X-Men #2

[history79]

Comments

[stolisomancer]

A lot of this book made a lot more sense to me once I found out, years later, that at this point, Jim Lee was effectively the plotter and Claremont's role was solely to do whatever he had to do to make Lee's pages tell a coherent story.

[byc]

It's not great, but it's not a complete mess.

This was more or less my starting point for X-Men, so the de-aging thing was confusing as hell. I didn't look for back issues, I just moved forward.

[balbanes]

I forgot about the time Marvel decided that magnetic powers somehow lets you know when someone is lying.

Of course Magneto has had other as-determined-by-the-plot powers that were somehow tied to magnetism. (Remember when he could eliminate anti-mutant biases?) But for some reason, I thought that silliness ended before the 90s.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I thought he was using the metal coating on the body to pull some Daredevil-type trickery there -- reading heartbeats, etc.?

[balbanes]

If that's all it took, anyone with a stethoscope could detect lies. :)

[wizardru]

Magneto has used 'magnetism' to do a lot of...shall we say dubious feats? Heck, the very notion of magnetism allowing him to create force fields that can contain atmosphere is dicey, at best. Using it for hypnotism and other feats? It's been used for a lot of things that...yeah, not so much.

[bruinsfan]

I loved that the Danger Room's simulation computer kept replying to their prospective combat scenario with the equivalent of "Y'all are SCREWED!" no matter how many times they ran it. Though since they were in communication with Nick Fury, perhaps asking if the Avengers could loan them Thor or Quasar would have been a good idea.

[scorntx]

In light of the existence of Danger, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility to think she was doing it to mess with them.

-perhaps asking if the Avengers could loan them Thor or Quasar would have been a good idea-
Perhaps. But this was the X-Men deep in their isolation from the rest of the Marvel universe.

[bruinsfan]

I don't know, the remaining team is probably more than a match for their brainwashed teammates, but throw in Magneto and a bunch of his mutant lackeys with unknown powers... any plans I'd have made would have involved getting Professor X freed and out from under any inhibitor devices very quickly.

[tigerkaya]

You know the rules mutant problems are an X-men problem. Besides the two teams hated eachother at this point.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

So was this when the X-Men were in their prime, so to speak? With the cartoon going on and the comics becoming red-hot?

Or before? After?

[scorntx]

X-Men issue 1 was released in October 1991.
X-Men: The Animated Series didn't begin until 1992.

But this was the X-Men probably at their height.

[wizardru]

Yeah, this was the Zenith of the X-Men. In the late 1970s, they were also-rans who had been out of circulation and were only bi-monthly. By the early 1980s, they were the New Hotness, heralding a new age of comics and changing the rules of what comics were doing (to a degree), by this time, they had risen to the point of being Marvel's biggest sellers: the only thing even close was Spiderman. The biggest issues of the year were either this, the debut of X-Force or the Spiderman issues where...Wolverine guest-starred. All in all, the X-titles were selling huge numbers at this time. A poor selling issue would only sell about 250-300,000 copies.

One of the things that Bendis was specifically brought on to do when he joined Marvel was to effectively bring the Avengers back to prominence, after the X-Men had knocked them out of years. Looking at January 1995, for example (the earliest year that Comichron has monthly data), Amazing X-Men #1 sells (at a guess) about 350,000 copies across Capital and Diamond combined, ranked at #1 for the month, followed by Astonishing X-Men and a bunch of other titles (the X-Men filling 8 of the top 10 positions). Avengers 384 sells...A LOT LESS. It's ranked 77 for the month, probably selling 50K...following months got worse, as it dropped to 30K. Keep in mind, this was during the boom of the 90s, so it was really bad.

[balbanes]

My recollection-- as someone who was totally caught up in the early 90s silliness-- is that the Avengers failed to capitalize on the prevailing zeitgeist. This was the time of the angsty anti-hero, and the mutants had Marvel's patron saint of angsty anti-heroes: Wolverine. There's a reason he was in every X-title, ever! What's more, putting Logan in a story meant catering it to his angsty anti-hero-ness, which meant roles for lots of other similar characters. The X-men had also been established as outlaws universally hated by the population at large, which again fed the popular appetite.

Contrast with the Avengers. They're lead by Captain America, who at the time was as goody-two-shoes as a hero got. They work for the government. They're beloved by the Marvel populace. They never ever kill. In short, they're as far away from the 90s anti-heroes as possible, and thus aren't selling what people were buying.

[zylly]

I think my neuro-typical privilege may be showing here, but just based on those panels, I don't read it as Moira messing with Magneto's mind so much, as, well, the equivalent of giving him medications for mental illness (which is probably the wrong word as well, and I apologize). No different than someone taking medication for anxiety or depression, just in this case trying to regulate the part of him where magnetism makes him crazy.

Or is it a consent issue?