X-MEN #47: Big Trouble in Little Italy

The X-Babies are on the run from Gog and Magog!

Originally Published December 1995

So, the X-Babies are on the run, having been separated from their would-be rescuers Bishop and Gambit sometime between the the last issue and this one. Running amok in the streets of Little Italy, they blunder into the Feast of San Gennaro parade.

Cyke makes for a weirdly buff baby but it's still better than a lot of kids you see in comics

Our full-sized heroes manage to pull themselves out of the rubble, noting for pur benefit that conveniently, everyone who was present in the speakeasy got away safely, and the place was probably insured, despite being an illegal casino.

They put a pin in their conversation about whether Gambit is capable of betraying the X-Men for later.

Back at the Yarns and Bogles Bookstore, the wayward X-Baby versions of Storm and Iceman are throwing a hissyfit, as full-sized Bobby and Jean (who is telepathically obscuring their presence from everyone) get the lowdown: the X-Babies are due to be canceled. 

Iceman is nonplussed: the X-Babies aren't really alive, they're just kind of... cartoons walking around in the world. Jean contradicts this, saying that telepathically speaking, they're very much alive and it would not be a good thing if they got killed. Well now I don't know who to believe.

Bishop and Gambit track the X-Babies and Gog and Magog down to what appearsto be a carnival that has been set up as part of the evening's festivities (I'm not Catholic or a New Yorker so I don't know if this is normal??)

When the Gog family proves to be more than a match for the mismatched buddy cop X-Men, the X-Babies step in with hilarious, kid-friendly Home Alone-esque offense.

Well, maybe more like Three Ninjas Kick Back

Jean and Bobby arrive, so that it's now a perfectly fair four-X-Men-plus-six-babies-on-two-monsters fight.

But even that isn't enough to stop Gog and Magog's offense. The attackers persist, only stopping dead in their tracks by the sudden arrival of...

Yeah! Remember her?

So apparently, due to some complicated political maneuverings in the Mojoverse that we are not privy to, there are certain forces that want the X-Babies dead, but Dazzler, who may end up as the First Lady of Mojoworld if Longshot is elected President, does not want them dead, and Gog and Magog defer to her on this, despite their orders from whomever-it-is that does want them dead.

Dazz sends Gog and Magog home and tells the X-Babies that the only way to keep them safe is if she adopts them all, like some kind of interdimensional Angelina Jolie.

Ever tactful, Bobby muses, 'that's a lot of mouths to feed, and weren't you pregnant the last time we saw you?' But before he can make a total ass of himself Jean shuts him up -- look at that waistline, obviously she's not pregnant, and don't ask any more questions about it until she's ready to talk.

Dazzler bids her ex-teammates -- well, she was never actually on a team with any of these people, but once an X-Man always an X-Man -- farewell, and the heroes resolve to let her find her own way, in the Mojoverse.

We close out with what appears to be an ominous conversation between Professor X and Boomer about Sabretooth, aka an ad for next month's Uncanny. Be there!

  

Further Thoughts:

Me: Sophisticated, intelligent reader in 2024 with years mainlining the entire history of X-Men and pontificating on the nature of comics as a craft under my belt.

This comic: Published in 1995 as a bit of frivolous fluff to appeal to the young readers of X-Men, adding levity to what is otherwise an often dour proceeding (addressing as it does topics like genocide, hate crimes, restorative justice and now pandemics.)

I love this project but you've got to remember that X-Men comics mostly weren't meant to be analyzed in this way, no matter how robust the subject matter. Most comics weren't. Most things aren't. If you aren't charmed by the X-Babies, that's your deal, but I first read this comic as an eight-year-old kid and I found it reasonably entertaining. Do I, as an adult reader, care about the goings-on in post-rebellion Mojoverse? No, no, no, a thousand no's. Am I a little taken aback at Dazzler's implied miscarriage and subsequent desire to fill a hole in her life by adopting a host of incorrigible replicants of her close friends and former teammates? Sure. Really, this is just the actionized follow-up to the previous issue's setup, a bit of fun that makes only the slightest amount of room for the strong character work between Gambit and Bishop that we saw last month, and not much at all for Bobby and Jean. Could there have been more meat to it? Maybe advancing a subplot or two? Sure.

If you need to take anything away from this comic, I'll give you this: Gog and Magog are adamant that they are doing their duty harmlessly by attempting to kill the X-Babies, likening it to shredding documents at an office. Jean testifies that no, they are actually people with hearts and minds like anyone else. She never uses her expertise to try to convince the bad guys that what they're doing is wrong, and I doubt that would have accepted her testimony. In the real world, we have people protesting actual doctors giving medical advice and instead preferring to listen to unqualified wackos on the internet because they tell them things they want to hear and believe. Even in my own life, I have people who made their minds up about an issue decades ago, despite an overwhelming amount of what I consider to be compelling evidence that they should rethink their position that is freely available. Dealing with closed minds is one of the great blights of this era, and though I doubt that Lobdell meant to forecast that when he set this story up, it does give me pause to think of the ways in which these comics reflect the world, intentionally or not.