X-MEN ANNUAL #7: Scavenger Hunt

The X-Men chase that wacky Impossible Man all around the world on a kooky scavenger hunt!

Originally Published 1983

We begin with one of my very favourite things... the X-Men playing baseball!

Just as Colossus hits a real dinger, the whole season seems to come to an end, and not due tostrike, COVID-19, or getting their last ball hit into orbit, but because of Galactus!

Now, Galactus is looking a little more green than usual, and it's strange to hear him use the word "neat" but this Galactus is absolutely a threat, impervious to the X-Men's attacks and incapacitating the Professor when he attempts a mindscan (on an immortal cosmic being - very ambitious move, Charles.)

Galactus seems to mean no harm, however - in fact, the only thing he wants is the X-Men's house... which he takes.

Uglaublich indeed, Kurt!

And that's just the beginning. The X-Men track him - because why wouldn't they go running after Galactus when he steals the entire building where they live and train with dangerous robots - to, of all places, the Shield Heli-Carrier, where Nick Fury (the white one) is getting frisky with his ladyfriend, the Contessa Valentina Allegro de Fontaine, in a highly suggestive and erotic tribute to his classic 1960's adventures illustrated by Jim Steranko.

Kitty Pryde barges in on this hanky panky, only for a green dragon of some kind to "pop" out of nowhere, declaring he will not let anyone stop him, as there's too much at stake!

It's only after Kitty and her foe both get away that Contessa notices that Fury's eyepatch has been stolen.

The next stop is the Savage land, where, of all things, Ka-Zar's kitty cat friend Zabu has been snatched.

Rogue puts three and three together to realize that this creature must be engaging in some kind of scavenger hunt. The rest of the team dismisses this as patently ridiculous, but nobody has any alternatives.

Next, the X-Men are brought into conflict with the Avengers - specifically She-Hulk and Iron Man (who at this point isn't an active Avenger, and isn't even Tony Stark but James Rhodes, whom you may know as War Machine) - over a misunderstanding when this mysterious green weirdo runs off with a bunch of The Wasp's outfits and Colossus is seen on the scene with former-villain Rogue.

"Heroes mistaking each other for villains" is on my Marvel Scavenger hunt, and it's the easiest item to find.

While this is going on, the alien snatches Dr. Strange's famous skylight, which is the only thing keeping hordes of demons out. (You'd think maybe they'd just go somewhere else?)

Next we move onto another iconic setting... the Hellfire Club's... basement. There, Emma Frost is still getting the Snow White treatment (instead of the more conventional Hospital Treatment) after being telepathically struck down by Mastermind.

There, they brawl with Sebastian Shaw while our green and purple friend makes off with Jean Grey's old underwear (you know, from when she was in the Club and that was what she wore to be all evil and sexy.)

The X-Men manage to get away after him, but before long, their antagonist has made his way to his final destination - Marvel Headquarters!

Er, the new Marvel Headquarters, as the company has recently moved.

There, we see Marvel staffers such as "Mighty" Mark Gruenwald and "Bad, Bad" Eliot R. Brown, discussing comic minutiae, such as the length of Zabu's tail.

When in bursts the Impossible Man, with the X-Men in tow, causing a total whirlwind in the "not terribly spacious" office (making you wonder why they even moved there in the first place.)

The mystery fiend has come in search of Stan "The Man" Lee himself, only to be told - by a rather blasé Editor Larry Hama, Stan doesn't live here anymore, he moved out to California years ago.

Well by now, as the superheroes wreaks havoc on the office, tearing Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter's clothes and whatnot, the X-Men have had just about enough of this shenanigan, so they square off. Rogue tackles Impossible Man, which he counters with an Impossible Zap that knocks her out. The X-Men are gagged at this, but I-Man reasons that he only did that because she was trying to hurt him, and that's not cool.

See, the X-Men have been treating this like your garden variety supervillain showdown when in reality, it's just a harmless jape. Impossible Man relates his impossibly convoluted backstory - he and his family are the survivors of a hivemind planet called Poppup that was eaten by Galactus. They then had to decide who was in charge, and the only way they could agree was with a Scavenger Hunt - pick a planet and grab as much cool stuff as possible. Naturally, Impossible Man picked Earth, and wanted to grab trinkets from all the various Marvel Heroes. And he also wanted to kidnap Stan Lee.

In the midst of explaining all of this, some intergalactic nasties arrive, mad at Impossible Man because he and his family ran around stealing all of their pants. (Literally, they did not have any pants left to put on before this big confrontation, not a one of them.)

Luckily, Lilandra, the Empress of the Shi'ar, is around to use her credentials to mediate. Since nothing stolen was damaged and no harm done, the cosmic heavies let the obnoxious shapeshifting alien off the hook as long as they get their stuff back when the Scavenger Hunt is judged, which Lil decrees she will do, since she has always demonstrated an innate sense of whimsy and fun.

Impossible Man loses, and we completely miss out on the opportunity to see what exactly so much better than Zabu the Tiger and Nick Fury's Eyepatch. We close on Impy hanging around the pool with Kitty and Illyana, who agree to share his ice cream with him when he pops into looking like Tom Selleck. What a punch line. The end.

Further Thoughts:

Contrary to the rumours going around, I don't actually hate fun. In fact, I've even had it once or twice. But when "fun" is forced on you as a reader it becomes a real waste of everyone's time. If you liked this comic, bless, but no, I wasn't a fan.

It's not a bad idea for a one-off. The whole legend surrounding Marvel Comics largely began with Stan Lee "inviting" fans into their world via the "Bullpen" (a mostly fictitious place where the Marvel creators supposedly did their work) creating a sense of community between the creators and readers. going to that well could, and should, expose plenty of material, along with nods to famous Marvel landmarks and moments - the Nick Fury callback was one of the better parts, but I wouldn't call it "funny" except in the surprising way seeing something like that out of context is.

The choices of items to steal were not as iconic as they could be - what about Captain America's shield, Iron Man's glove? What about trying to grab Thor's hammer, only for it not to budge (because of the worthiness thing.) Dr. Doom's spare cape. I'm just spitballing here and I've had less time to think about it than Chris Claremont probably did. (I'll grant you - the X-Men's house is pretty iconic, and better than stealing the Prof's wheelchair or something.)

The comic spends a little too much time playing it straight, pretending like this is a real threat - you do need to do that, but introduce elements of humour along the way. Why invoke the Hellfire Club and Sebastian Shaw? Why bother with a straight-faced hero-fight between the X-Men and Avengers?  The bit with Dr. Strange's window and all the demons could have been funny, but didn't land - Ghostbusters was a year away from doing that gag (imagine, demons coming in and instead of menacing him, raiding his fridge or something.) Why have Rogue tip us off that it's a Scavenger Hunt if you're not going to do anything with that information, and completely ruin your big payoff? I swear, bad comedy makes me so mad.

Also, the X-Men are a little off-model, and not, like, in a "funny" way.

Impossible Man isn't funny. Not here anyway. He's a figure of comedy - the wacky alien shapeshifter, yeah, we get it - but he isn't funny. The visual gags are lame and he's mostly at the fringe of the story as the X-Men chase him. Then when the team catches him, he's very earnest and childlike and you just feel bad for him. (I'm halfway on whether his having so many gaps in his knowledge is okay or bad since half his shtick is doing pop culture impersonations.) Daffy Duck never said he was sorry, that's all I'm saying.

As to the Marvel Offices trip, I wanted more. General mayhem is a fine comedy beat but it isn't funny in itself if you don't have anything to go with it. I'm not saying they needed to spend half the issue there, but they could have used those few pages better - surely with so many big personalities there was material. I'm not saying everyone needs to be going around on a pogo stick zapping each other with joy buzzers, but there needs to be a funny switch between "This is a place of business" and "this is a place where wacky comic book characters drop in."

There's some good stuff, like Michael Golden and Larry Hama being amusingly dry about the colorful superheroes barging in, and for whatever reason, Paul Smith's "Hey, I don't draw this book anymore" cameo was my favourite. Jim Shooter gets off pretty lightly considering he would later come to be regarded as a demanding tyrant, but sources say he hadn't quite tipped into dictatorial mode at this point in his tenure.