X-MEN ANNUAL #11: Lost in the Funhouse

The X-Men face their own inner demons!

 

Originally Published 1987

Here's something we don't see every day: Wolverine, wandering around plastered, singing showtunes at the top of his lungs:

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hugh Jackman

Specifically, Logan is favoring us tonight with selections from Irish Playwright Brendan Behan's 1953 commentary on Irish Nationalism and Resistance, The Hostage. His caterwauling wakes the sleeping X-Men who come out to see exactly what Logan's problem is, only for the former Weapon X to proclaim there is no problem; in fact, he's not even drunk -- he can't be drunk, because his healing factor metabolizes alcohol out of his system too fast for him to get drunk. 

See? Everything's great. Now go back inside and go to sleep and let this obviously fine man be on his way to being absolutely hunky dory.

Although for some reason the X-Men are worried, Storm notes that Wolverine has to want help before they can offer any. Inside, Betsy apologizes to her visiting brother Brian and his companion Meggan, for the disruption of the first night of his stay. Brian, his impossibly thick neck, square jaw and perfectly blow-dried hair, is also known as the superhero Captain Britain. Meggan is known primarily as Meggan.

Betsy and Brian talk of how Psylocke is doing as a new member of the X-Men, and she frets that mutants are cursed to be hunted seemingly forever. Brian won't have any of this negativity - it's not cricket, so pip pip and all that - but Betsy says it's true, and for all her strength she must learn to truly be a warrior.

Speaking of warriors, we catch up with Wolverine who would be sobered up if he were drunk in the first place. As he prepares for bed, he reflects on the reason for his somber mood - it's the *coughcough*th anniversary of what would have been his  wedding to Mariko, and her having called off the nuptuals in order to prove herself worthy of him (by her own standards) is a wound that truly hasn't healed.

Better people than me have unpacked this series' take on the Japanese cultural identity, but this is the story and we have to go with it.

As Wolverine contemplates the dichotomy between his animalistic take-no-prisoners warrior self and his noble human side (in case you haven't reread Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's Wolverine miniseries lately) Storm is attacked by a mysterious new foe.

The X-Men and Captain Britain and Meggan rush in, but all prove no match for this foe. Clocks are cleaned in record time.

After, regrettably, forcing a kiss on Storm (as all these gross villains must do), Horde explains that he, too, is a mutant among his race, but unlike the X-Men, he uses his power to conquer. He intends to get the X-Men to do his bidding and if they put up a fight, bad things are in store, because he's got the Super Nuh-Uh Powers to match all of our heroes.

Horde has a special assignment for our heroes: break into the Citadel of Light and Shadow and steal the Crystal of Ultimate Vision.

Oh, of course. That thing.

The X-Men are left little choice but to comply and figure out what to do later, so it's off to the Citadel we go.

Now, this place isn't called the Citadel of Light and Shadow because they've got an Olympic-sized pool and an all-day breakfast. Going in there, you're going to be exposed to some freaky shit. After kissing Wolverine for motivation (saying today is as good a day to die as any,) Storm astutely observes that there's a reason that all-powerful superdedupervillain Horde wants to send them in -- there's probably someone in there that can hurt him, so they just need to be on the look out.

And look out they do. While Wolverine scouts ahead and Longshot cowers at the back, inexplicably wary of this misty palace of creepy death, Rogue catches a fantastical glimpse of herself as the true Princess of the Old South, doted on by real Southern Gentleman types and, presumably, having skin-on-skin contact without any adverse effects. It's a dream life that she permits herself to get drawn into... perhaps permanently.

A real Antebellum Lady, you might say.

But the Citadel of Light and Shadow is not just about perversely tempting you with your fondest desires, that would be too easy. It can also expose your deepest insecurities, as when Havok is briefly slighted by Captain Britain, he literally explodes to show what would happen if he ever truly cut loose.

My own deepest fear is that Havok will forget that the things on his chest are just meant to signify his power level, and that his powers come out of his hands.

The only casualty of this event is Havok, who is turned into a statue by his own angst. Next, Longshot is absorbed into the Citadel itself, causing Dazzler to run off stricken with guilt for letting it happen. She encounters visions of her own possible lives - as a successful lawyer and Judge, as her father wanted her to be, or as a struggling singer who never quite makes it, or as a nobody who never tries anything.

Next to find their bizarre fates are the Braddock twins and Meggan. Where Brian and Meggan find themselves drawn to a world where they are happy normies who raise kids at Braddock Manor and never have to worry about punching evil villains, Psylocke embraces a life as a steel-skinned warrior robot thing.

Up ahead, Wolverine is finally brought face-to-face with his own heart's desire, Mariko. But not the Mariko we know -- one who wears sexy, tight-fitting outfits and poses provocatively, just to give you the idea that she's into something dangerous.

But Wolverine is less that impressed by Mariko 2.0, and fully rejects what he is given.

Likewise Storm is presented with a vision of the woman she loves - Yukio - and she, too, rejects the falseness. Inconveniently, Horde arrives, and having had the way to the Crystal of Ultimate Vision paved for him, he now wants to kill the X-Men, having already dispatched Psylocke in her fancy new Metal Mario form.

Wolverine shoves Storm back into her fantasy, where she'll at least survive, as Horde manages to strike a killing blow against Logan. 

But when a drop of Wolverine's blood lands on the Crystal of Ultimate Macguffin, something... unexpected happens.

That's right, Wolverine is resurrected completely from a single drop of blood, his healing factor and will to live having been superdedupercharged by the crystal's strange and ill-defined power.

He takes the shard of crystal that Horde wears and...

How's that for "The Bells of Hell go tingalingaling for you but not for me"?

Briefly, Wolverine has a moment of power that touches all of creation, making him the latest X-Man to be a God.

Like a modern-day Canadian Cincinnatus, he rejects the role and instead elects to destroy the crystal, figuring it will either free the X-Men or destroy them, and either way, we're nearly out of pages.

The Citadel collapses, and...

The X-Men, upon awakening in the mansion, congregate, dimly aware that anything of consequence has happened, mostly just thinking it was all some crazy dream (group dream, is that a thing?) while Wolverine sits in solitary contemplation.

In closing, we learn that the Citadel is itself a test, to see who can attain the ultimate treasure yet deny the temptation of its power. The statues out front represent those seekers who came and failed, punished to have their races' evolution arrested. In succeeding, Wolverine proved that humankind is a uniquely mature race -- and all that it is now able to achieve is thanks to him.

Further Thoughts:

In concept and execution, this is very much the prototypical X-Men Annual: the new ultimate villain appears, whisks them away to wackyland or whatever, they face hard truths about themselves, and they overcome in the end. We've seen variations with Arkon, with a tribute to Dante's Inferno, with Arkon again, with Asgard... it's not even a stretch to suggest that their outing against Mojo was in that same pattern.  

And just why does this have to keep happening?

Where this issue has them all beat is... well, okay, nowhere. Horde is purpose-built to be the most dreadfully generic villain who ever stomped his way through the X-Mansion, the X-Men have yet another magic space crystal to deal with. The parts are all sturdy though. Horde is more of a comment on big generic villains, laying bare the artifice of the big muscular ultimate baddie from nowhere. The real thrust of the story is the Citadel of Light and Shadow and its Lotus-Eater Machine gimmick which gives us the insights into the individual X-Men's wants and desires. It's a dependable way to fill a King-Size Annual as long as you've got a superstar guest artist like Alan Davis bringing the whimsy and playfulness and strangeness and pathos. You can see Chris Claremont rubbing his hands together to begin a very fruitful collaboration with Mr. Davis and his beloved Marvel U.K. properties.

Although it tries to give airtime to everybody, the focus is on Wolverine -- it begins and ends with him despite letting him disappear in the middle so the evil temptation plot can ensnare each of the members of the X-Men, and their guests from Marvel U.K. The main thrust is Logan's lingering sadness over the end of his relationship with Mariko and how while he would love to settle down with her, there is duty and honor in him to do what is right. Psylocke only gets it half-right when she says that Wolverine is born to war -- she didn't read the mini-series. Similarly, the Citadel manages to get it way wrong by presenting a Mariko who is as wild and untamed as Logan, who would conveniently fit into the world he represents. He doesn't want her to be that, he wanted to protect her from sliding into the underworld and, for lack of a better verb, use her to escape his own. Logan wants inner peace, and you would think an omniscient, sentient citadel made of the collective hopes and fears of all who enter, would get that.

For a lot of the characters, the story doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. Psylocke made her intention to reinvent herself as a warrior-woman quite clear in her first interactions with the X-Men, and while I don't know much about Captain Britain and Meggan and their yen for domesticity, they're the guest stars (and boy do they feel it.) I will say that I was profoundly moved by Dazzler's vision, finding herself at the junction of chasing her own dream that may never come to be, chasing someone else's that could be all too easily, and giving up altogether to simply be nothing, which is easy and safe and comforting. This blog isn't necessarily meant to be Scotto's Therapy Session, but it rang true to decisions that I have made in my life -- or declined to make, or maybe have yet to make, although I never considered becoming a disco diva. 

The various observations Chris Claremont has for his characters are illuminating enough, but would feel less redundant if it weren't for the fact that he went on an absolute tear presenting and analyzing them ever since he started introducing them as team members early in 1987.

I want to talk a little bit then about Longshot, who has the strangest part in this story. Longshot came into the X-Men's, and our, world, nearly a year ago in the previous Annual, and has not made much of a splash since. He has been around, participating in the adventures and fighting the bad guys, but not spotlighted the way the other recent inductees have, even in the story that introduced him. Now, we didn't cover the Longshot Miniseries written by Ann Nocenti, which was not intended to be a mutant outing, but it's a strange and intriguing piece of satire that introduces Mojoworld, Spiral and Longshot. Longshot is a man without a past, a tabula rasa, pure and childlike in his innocence in a way that is sometimes sweet and sometimes grating. But since he has no past and no baggage, this story, which is about baggage, has a hard time knowing what to do with him so, with a horrified shrug, he simply vanishes, and we simply chalk it up to the Citadel of Light and Shadow being the Citadel of Light and Shadow. 

It's no secret that Chris Claremont loves a new toy, so when Longshot appeared on the shelves he had to have it. But in this tendency, he seems to have a habit of giving himself a problem instead of a tool. Now, sometimes solving a "problem" character leads to great moments -- Jean Grey being over-powered as Phoenix was a problem. Rachel, too, being so powerful and so traumatized to the point it could never be resolved, was a problem. Longshot being this incorruptibly pure man destined never to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, with no background and no meaningful connection to anything else, feels to me like a problem. It makes him less of a dynamic figure amongst the ensemble, less a driver of stories. It's intriguing from a creative perspective, but how do you write that in a monthly superhero comic?

Perhaps this would have been the time to put him front and center, with his lack of fears and secret desires being an asset that helps him win the day -- but then we'd be robbed of a cool if improbable Wolverine rebirth moment. In the end, as the book is tied up in a way meant to give this piece some sense of weight right at the end, Wolverine represents the best of humanity. This might seem strange but it's definitely the way the writing has been leaning for some time. Wolverine contains multitudes and while he is grizzled enough to do the not-nice things, he is noble enough to know just how not nice they are. 

The last panels offer a commentary on the "evolution" of mankind, a big cumbaya moment that feels surprisingly jarring on first read. Of course this all ties into the entire concept of the mutants themselves and the ever-present question of humanity's fate. It's actually weird to end on such an optimistic note of hope for mankind -- but I may only specifically find it weird because I am a human being alive in 2021 and am very jaded because of it, although even in its darkest day a comic like X-Men could never take the alternative position. It has to believe there is more goodness than not in mankind and that we are bound for somewhere better. And that's nice to hear.