UNCANNY X-MEN #261: Harriers Hunt

Your new favourite characters are here -- and they've got their sights set on Wolverine!

Originally Published May 1990

We begin in a warehouse in Madripoor's Lowtown district, where the Harriers are being briefed about their latest targets: Jubilee, Psylocke, and Wolverine.

Oh, who are the Harriers, you ask? Well let me introduce them so you know exactly whose faces to get tattooed on your neck to show your undying fandom over the next 30 years. They are:

• Longbow (Amelia Greer)
• Ranger (Jesus Suarez)
• Shotgun (Zeke Salinger)
• Axe (Jerome Hamilton)
• Warhawk (Tom Nakada)
• Lifeline (Deacon Mysterious Guy With No Last Name)
• Hardcase himself (Sgt.-Major Harry Malone of the Royal Marine Commandos [Ret.])
• Blindside (Bobbi Chase)
• Piston (Andre Semyanovitch Rostov)
• and Timebomb (Louis Joubert)

Be sure to show this page to your mom so she doesn't get you Timebomb for your birthday when you specifically asked for Axe.

This international and highly diverse cadre of special ops veterans-turned-mercenaries all come with their own special and highly marketable skill-slash-personality trait, like Axe, who wields an Axe, or Shotgun, who reads comics. 

Hardcase, Axe and Shotgun had already had a run-in with Wolverine, which left Hardcase a little salty since, due to Logan's intervention, the group didn't get paid for the opium crop they were to destroy (although it was destroyed. Seems like splitting hairs to me but maybe Hardcase offers a very favorable customer service guarantee.)

That said, Hardcase isn't out for revenge -- he wants Wolverine and his gal pals brought in unharmed, much to Axe's consternation. Blindside tries to sell Axe on the thrill of the hunt, also noting ominously that any one of them could be killed in this line of work.

Elsewhere in Lowtown, Jubilee is having some problems with the local cuisine, proving once again this Chinese-American is not in her element in Asia.

That's not the only thing chapping Jubilation's heiny, either, since she objects to the continued presence of Psylocke. It's not hard to see her point of view, being that Psylocke extremely recently tried to kill and/or brainwash them both into the service of the Mandarin. Jubes also takes it extremely personally that Wolverine doesn't count exclusively on this 16-year-old runaway teen to protect him and keep him healthy. Also, and this is mostly unsaid, there's probably a little jealousy when it comes to the looks department.

To say nothing of the cultural appropriation of it all.

On the astral plane, Betsy and Logan have a discussion about Psylocke's trustworthiness and also the fact that Wolverine is still being followed by the ghostly images of Carol Danvers and Nick Fury, which is irksome to Psylocke since they are figments of imagination and don't exist and have kind of overstayed their welcome. Carol counters that it's not so different from the X-Men being invisible to photography and sensors (oh here we go again with that) and that existence is relative and that if something's real to you it's real, which is sorta true but not really, you know, and there's a very specific branch of medicine that tries to deal with that. 

Luckily, this discussion is broken up by action!

Yes, all this chitter-chatter has distracted Psylocke from her lookout duties, leading the Harriers to get the drop on our heroes, snatching Wolverine and leaving Jubilee for dead.

Over in Westchester, Banshee and Forge have arrived at the X-Mansion, and they got all the way here before Forge kindly asks why exactly they've made a stopover in New York when they were supposedly bound for Hollywood.

Banshee's answer is that he's looking for info on who might be after them, trying to stop them from collecting the X-Men.

Nobody's been living here, so who's updating this file photo? Is it on Google Drive? SharePoint?

Banshee suspects it has something to do with the new, horny Moira, and thinks about using the backdoor that he had Forge design into Muir Isle's facility to get the trop on her if something is going down. But first, they have to get back to their task of finding the X-Men, which they can do from the relative safety of the disused X-Mansion.

Forge points out, once again, that the X-Men are invisible to all forms of scanner, to which Banshee says, "Why don't you just invent something they won't be invisible to, that's your power isn't it?" And then I go "Arrrghhh" and swear to the Heavens that if Forge actually succeeds in inventing a piece of technology that can detect the un-detectable-to-technology X-Men, I will throw this comic into a flicking river, then set the river on fire like the Cuyahoga.

Metaphorically speaking, that is -- I'm reading it on a laptop and I can't afford to lose it.

This conversation is sidetracked when the pair notice they have company upstairs: Jean Grey has stopped by for a visit to her alma mater, where she runs into some unexpected trouble.

The bizarre creatures take on the appearances of the X-Men themselves, even Jean Grey in her X-Factor uniform, with a noticeable off-model quality.

Having subdued her, they teleport away to parts unknown.

At a hospital in Athens (Greece, not Georgia), Cylla Markham has survived her plane crash only to receive an offer for a very unique form of medical treatment.

That's right folks. You thought they were gone??! You thought they were "not in it that long?!" Shows what you know! We're done with those wacky cyborgs when Chris Claremont is good and ready to be done with them.

Later for that though as we return to Madripoor, where Jubilee and Psylocke are regrouping at a safehouse with Rose Wu. 

Psylocke declares that she has located Wolverine, but surmises based on how easy it was to do, it's clearly a trap. Rose asks for the X-Ladies to sit tight while she gathers Logan's many friends in the area. Psylocke says "You go do that, we're going to spring the trap and save Wolverine." Neither of them mentions anything about whether granddaughter Ruth escaped from the Mandarin's capture okay.

The big plan? Jubilee plays an obnoxious pizza delivery guy to distract the Harriers, who don't recognize her despite having been studying a dossier on her all night...

Whilst Psylocke uses her ninja skills to skulk around in the shadows.

Of course the heroes get found out and chaos erupts, but in the midst of it all Jubilee is able to free Wolverine.

The two sides have a donnybrook, with the eighteen Harriers unable to do much against the British former fashion model turned Ninja and the California delinquent teen mallrat.

Although the guest stars are able to show off their unique and marketable skillsets...

And Jubilee demonstrates her unabashed horniness.

Of course eventually, the numbers get the better of the X-Gals, and they are cornered by the various Harriers. That's when Wolverine arrives to even the odds...

But as it turns out...

That's right, this was all a hilarious prank!

Er, by that I mean, it was a test. Could Psylocke be trusted? Could Jubilee be a team player? Are the Harriers ready for the Big Time? Thanks to this little excursion -- a little impromptu Danger Room scenario -- we now know the answers.

Rose Wu and the "Wolverine Rescue Squad" arrive around this time, and they all have a pizza party.  But next time when the stakes are for real, it may not be so jovial.

Further Thoughts:

So, who here knows what a "backdoor pilot" is?

This is done in the TV industry when you introduce some new characters into a series with the aim of testing out the audience's interest in them for their own spinoff. Sometimes this is done subtly, and there's always a chance the producers will hit on something for which there is an appetite, but usually, these episodes will be distinctively out-of-sync with the rest of the program and leave viewers scratching their heads, like that whole episode of the Office that was about Dwight's farm.

The spotlight on the Harriers in this case feels unmistakably like an attempt to push these new characters as the hot new finds of the 1990's, the Guns n Roses decade. Most tellingly, the credits are even accompanied by a conspicuous "created by" credit for Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri, in case the Harriers make it big in the future and Tom DeFalco needs a reminder where to send those royalty checks.

For whatever reason -- too numerous, too gimmicky, too "GI Joe", too bland, too generic, too obvious, too transparently an attempt to force a cool new group of characters, too many corny codenames (A Claremont Hallmark) -- the Harriers did not generate sufficient demand for future appearances, and in fact this was their last appearance in regular Marvel Comics... until 2022, when Chris Claremont himself exhumed them for an "X-Men Legends" appearance, in what has got to be the biggest refusal to accept "fetch" won't happen I've ever heard.

In that respect they're actually quite an anomaly -- very few comic characters fall into complete nothingness after one or two appearances. Usually someone is willing to drag them out of the mothballs at some point in the ensuing years. Even POST appeared now and again after Onslaught.

Given their militaristic trappings one would think that the Harriers were a good fit for the testosterone-charged 90s, which would see the rise of firearm-toting militaristic characters like Cable and the Punisher as fan favourites. But the Harriers have a kind of off-brand vibe to them, like Dollar-Store Army Men compared to bright, exciting action figures you find at Toys 'R' Us. There's something so uninspiring about a ten guys and ladies all in green fatigues using their gimmicky, non-lethal weapons in the larger-than-life Marvel world of psychics and eye-beams and iconic costumes that show every muscle and breast.

If it sounds crass, sorry but I don't make the rules.

Having them literally fail in their only two outings also can't have helped.

With this issue going for the "just kidding" twist ending, it's up to you whether you think it's a total waste of time or a fun outing (or if, Heaven forfend, you actually think there was potential to keep doing the Harriers.) For me, what makes it is Jubilee, and the dynamic she has with Psylocke. Yes, it all amounts to little within this issue, but it gives the two characters a moment of teeth-clenched teamwork that helps settle the dynamic, which is very interesting to me. Jubilee has been one of my favourite characters in this stretch of comics, especially since she linked up with Wolverine, and as silly as the "pizza boy" scheme is, it's very in tune with what she brings to the table, a breath of fresh air for the occasionally-overserious comics.