X-MEN #24: Digging Deeper Between Hope and Sorrow

The X-Men feel feelings

Originally Published September 1993

We begin with tears...

Not tears of sorrow, mind you, nor tears of joy, but tears of capsicum. That's because our resident Rajun Cajun, Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, has taken the object of his affairs, Rogue, aka hey what is your real name anyway, to his favourite gumbo spot (in all of Manhattan) as a way of getting away from all the sadness and gloom at the X-Masion following the untimely and tragic passing of young (and I do mean young) Illyana Rasputin.

They flirt their way around the topic, as well as several other ones of import -- Gambit's late lamented wife Belladonna, Rogue's true identity. As usual, nothing is resolved and all things go unspoken, with the banter devolving into longing looks. And frankly, that's the way I likes it.

On the more seasoned side of things, Sean Cassidy, aka Banshee, arrives at the Mansion to reunite with his accushla, Moira, seeking comfort and incomprehensible phonetic accents with one another after the soul-searching Moira did in the wake of the whole incident with Magneto back in X-Men #3 (you know, where she was accused of brainwashing him.)

Speaking of searching, Xavier and Hank are unpacking just what the Legacy Virus is -- with Hank admitting a certain amount of bitterness that Charles didn't call on the doctor of biogenics for help with this mystery disease, but admitting he'd have been stumped too.

Unfortunately, it looks like this Legacy Virus may get worse for mutantkind before it gets better.

And speaking of reunions, there's yet another one on the docket as Scott Summers has returned from Alaska, more resolved to be Mr. Commitment than ever.

Psylocke who, right?

Yes, exactly -- Psylocke and Psylocke are engaged in a sparring match, both with swords and with their very identities. Neither of them can seem to wrap their head around the idea that one of them might not really be Elizabeth Braddock, and will instead have to settle for being Kwannon -- the mega-hot killer ninja babe. Damn, what a letdown.

Wolverine stops by to summarize, and empathize, thusly:

I have no comment, I just love this line.

Jubilee, who is feeling the death of Illyana all the more because -- since they never seem to take her on missions anyhow -- she was the one who had the most contact with the tyke up until her death. Old Lady Kitty has some words of wisdom for her, but Jubilee may be too young and immature to hear them.

"When she was about..." Kitty, how old do you think Jubilee is?

So, look -- I have a lot of praise for how writers Nicieza and Lobdell are finding their groove on these books, but these Kitty appearances have been a major fumble. Kitty was 13 when she joined the X-Men and is probably no more than 16 or 17... she's almost the exact same age as Jubilee, yet she's strutting around with her tiddies on display like a full grown adult stripper, looking down on Jubes like she's some dumb kid she has to work to relate to. They're contemporaries. It's kind of the awkward part of being the (former) Kid X-Man. Kitty's been around for a while so she does have experience, but here she seems like she's closer to Jean in age, and role in the dynamic. It leads me to believe that as soon as Kitty left for Excalibur her character was completely lost.

Back in the city, Rogeu and Gambit continue to tapdance around their feelings, coming thiiiiiiiiis close to an actual kiss.

...until Rogue has to pump the brakes.

I love how it's not just a "will they or won't they?" with these two, but a "should they or shouldn't they?" and a "can they or can't they?" It's not a problem that has anything to do with a situation anyone would have in real life, but the pain and yearning really bleeds through the page and gives life to these characters.

At the mansion, Banshee and Moira -- who is deep in her thoughts about lost mutants like her son Kevin and Doug Ramsay as well as John Proudstar (whom the writers are suddenly very intent on memorializing despite being pretty long forgotten by this point) -- confer with Xavier, Scott, Jean and Beast about next-steps for the world of mutantdom in the face of a possible plague.

My recommendation: masks.

Grief-torn Jubilee gets solace from an unlikely, yet fitting, source: her mentor and friend Logan.

And elsewhere in the Mansion, White Betsy and Asian Betsy discuss the former's Orientalist design sensibilities, given she claims to be a WASP inside.

They continue to debate who, indeed, is the real Betsy, and who the impostor, weaseling their way into the heart of the X-Men for ill intent.

Hell of a grift, whichever one is the fake. Talk about a long con.

And for our last note in the issue, Scott and Jean reaffirm their commitment to one another in the face of all conceivable obstacles.

By which I mean...

Further Thoughts:

By mid-1993, Image Comics, founded by seven former Marvel artists, had been rolling along for a year, doing big sales numbers for splashy and sexy artwork tied to relatively flimsy superhero stories. There were any number of products from Image and similar indie startups -- WildC.A.T.s from Jim Lee, Youngblood from Rob Liefeld, and soon Gen13 (from Jim Lee again) among others -- were intent on replicating the unique alchemy of the X-Men, the Mutants, Wolverine, or some combination of them.

Now, you can draw anything on a page. That's the easy part. (Well, it's not that easy, believe me I've tried, but for talented artists it can be.) If you can conceive of "The X-Men, but even cooler and more badass," and you're an artist with the talent of a Jim Lee or a Marc Silvestri or even a Rob Liefeld (in this case "talent" is, uh, loosely defined -- but boy did the kids go nuts for him back in the day) it's not that hard to conjure up. After all, the X-Men have been around for something like 30 years (hey, should we be marking the occasion in some way?) and maybe gotten a little stodgy in their presentation -- all you have to do is just filter out all the little tics and traits that don't read as fresh and cool for the Don't Have a Cow decade, and voila -- instant hit. Right?

But the thing you can't fake is that the X-Men are characters. Great characters, beloved characters, with histories and personalities and substance. That's true of all the Marvel pantheon, but it's especially true of the X-Men because one guy -- who sadly isn't around writing the book anymore -- took a lot of time and care to precisely define and explore those characters over the course of 16 years. And yes, some of those characteristics may not have been carried over to the new regime, some of them may have fallen by the wayside or been boldly contradicted or morphed into something only tangentially related to what made that character great in the first place, but as of yet -- "September 1993" -- character remains the driving force of these stories, this property. It's why people will still be talking about the X-Men when they've been around for 60 years (spoiler from the future.) Because they aren't just lines on the page, because -- to a greater or lesser degree depending on who's steering the ship, these mutants think and act and feel like real people.

It's not always sexy and glamorous. Nobody gets punched, zarked or snikted in this issue: it's just a bunch of shellshocked people standing around moping, but it works because we love the X-Men, we empathize with them, and we want to spend time with them between the adventures and action. It can't always be like this but Fabian Nicieza has the good sense to know that X-Men fans need and want a steady diet of issues like this, to simply breathe with the characters once in a while. (And Andy Kubert is figuring out how to hit those grace notes, making this whole issue stylish, moody and gorgeous.) There's not much to say by way of describing it and recapping it, but in that there is so much to say. This is the essence of the X-Men.