X-MEN #57: Man

It's time to go

Originally Published October 1996

We begin with the Professor, still in his feelings about that time he begat a purple psychic monster bent on world destruction. Some people just aren't capable of moving on, y'know?

What's really got Chuck in a tizz is that in the aftermath of the Onslaught affair, he has been fully stripped of his psychic powers, the thing that has defined him since he was a kid. No longer knowing who he is, he decides to erase every reference to himself from the X-Men's files, and presumably lock his social media accounts.

At that very moment, the X-Men receive a visit from Ms. Good News herself, Val Cooper. Val is not here with news about Scott's wayward brother Alex, but in fact to take Charles Xavier into custody.

Val doesn't even elaborate what they want him for other than "protective custody," which -- I mean, what's more protective than having your own private army? So presumably they want to be able to run tests and say they've done something from a P.R. standpoint.

This seems a sensible request, given (waves hands about generally) all that's happened, but the X-Men circle the wagons: they take care of their shit in-house, thanks very much.

At that moment, Storm arrives to be the grown up in the room to tell the team she agrees with Val -- they should comply and let the government run their tests so they can feel assured that there won't be another Onslaught flare-up.

Meanwhile, Beast is having a leisurely afternoon in the park, where he sees a mom scolding her kids for pretending to be mutants (in an hateful way, not a sensitive way.)

He's come to talk with Trish Tilby, who he is recently on the outs with, partly due to her irresponsible reporting of the Legacy Virus story. He had a lot of time to think while he was held captive in an abandoned lab, and decided he loves Trish after all, so why not make another go of it? Yeah, because having civilian romances always works for X-Men.

Back at the mansion, Jean is on the side of Storm, saying that being in custody may give the Prof time to sort out the chaos going on in his mind and help him sort out where Onslaught ends and Charles begins.

Bobby starts to come around, wondering yes, what if "Onslaught" happens again? Val plays a montage of news events of the outcome of the battle, demonstrating how bad the first one was.

Elsewhere in New York, J. Jonah, principled newsman, has Graydon Creed and Bastion in his sights.

It's weird to see Jonah get involved in mutant business. And I know people like noble Jonah but it's a clash to me, I think some other journalist character should have been used. And I'm not even really sure how public Bastion is supposed to be that taking him down would seem like something a reporter could do. So this subplot is kind of a misfire for me.

Back at the mansion, Val is surprised and alarmed to find that they've got Magneto too (they don't actually, this is Joseph.)

Joseph wonders whether it is right to prosecute Charles for something he didn't do. It's a bit of a thorny issue, but a valid question: if you commit murder then get amnesia, should you be put on trial? Classic philosophy 101 stuff.

Quicksilver arrives to disagree with his father on principle.

After all the back and forth, Charles appears to give his two cents.

He'll go, willingly, and face accountability for whatever his role in the creation of Onslaught happened to be.

And with that...

Meanwhile, at Warren's Soho loft, Betsy arrives to see something amiss... and intriguing.

Further Thoughts:

I've been at this a long time and I've covered a lot of comics and I can't remember the last time I wrote up one where so little happened. That includes parts of the X-Cutioner's Song that would begin with someone saying "Let's go get Stryfe!" and end with them going, "Okay, here we go, we're going to go get Stryfe!" [citation needed.]

My working theory is that Mark Waid's sudden departure from this X-series necessitated Scott Lobdell to step in, on somewhat short notice, and whip something up that related to Onslaught and furthered the plot a little. There was no time to come up with any premise for action or anything like that. Hey, I get it. Sometimes work lands unexpectedly on my desk and I dog it too.

Contrast with the recent issue of Uncanny X-Men, in which even less "happens," but the 20-odd pages of comic are used to flesh out characters and give heartening moments to the readers. "Nothing happening" is not inherently a bad thing as long as the pages of the comic are used to give the reader something they might enjoy. It's a little harder to find that here, and after that landmark Uncanny I think readers are ready to start ramping up again. 

Yet. Charles Xavier's departure from the X-Men is a big, significant moment, and does deserve time to breathe. If that's the only thing that happens in this issue -- and it is -- it's a worthwhile development, especially since Scott Lobdell has been on record as not feeling like it's the X-Men without Charles. To have this severe ramification for the events of Onslaught really sells the impact of the event. It's just that, as a result, the issue is almost entirely philosophical back-and-forth about whether it's right to let them take the Professor. The question at hand, for which everyone's answers may be different, is if "significant moment at the end" is enough to justify the flat pace of the rest of the comic.

I don't like to play the "back in the day" card too often, but when Chris Claremont was writing X-Men, all of this would have happened in 2-3 pages and the significance and thematic resonance would have felt about equal if not more.

I say not a lot happens in this issue. There is a lot under the surface about the adversarial relationship between the X-Men/all mutants and the government, but not a lot is being said out loud and the subtext isn't even mined for much worthy of analysis. It's just "we want to take him," and "we don't want you to take him," the default positions held by the parties except for those like Jean and Storm who see the other side.

And of course, Charles is so beaten down by everything that he's ready to just give in, too.

It's not bad. It makes total sense why this comic happened the way it did and what the content is. I'm just saying that if I am a reader in 1996 maybe I am more into the quippy, blasty action than the intro to civics. I certainly think it says something about the popularity of the X-Men as a franchise and the unimpeachable hold it had on readers that nobody would bat an eyelash if they did an issue like this every now and again. I think it's believed that the occasional issue like this shores up the X-Men's prestige: we don't just punch about the issues, we talk about them too.

You can decide for yourself if you feel there's enough meat in the issue to justify this approach, if it's completely effective. I have my doubts, but there's no question that they succeeded in selling the moment when Charles leaves, which is the crux of the piece.

Oh, and we have a classic Iceman read. The library is closed!