This comic is for the birds
Originally Published July 1998
The Anchorage community of Ptarmigan Creek is under attack by a deadly mass of crows, in a scene that recalls a certain popular movie (meaning, of course, Birdemic.)
The original five X-Men are just sitting down to a leisurely dinner -- with Warren using the "only" image inducer on hand to hide his blue skin while Hank is wrapped up in the always effective "big coat disguise." They haven't even gotten their menus yet when the notice the commotion outside.
 |
| That's human stampede, in case you only skimmed and thought it said something different |
Feeling the Call to Action, the heroes spring forth, getting some good banter mileage out of the term for a group of crows.
Being in their civvies, they try to do as much heroing as possible without looking like superheroes.
While Cyclops hammers away at the feathered fiends with his fists, Jean -- the only X-person present who can use her powers secretly -- tries to mind-blast the birds. It doesn't take.
 |
| All those hours in the Danger Room and we never worked out what to do if some birds got in my hair |
Not far away, the mystical Inuit guy who apparently summoned the birds is absolutely eating, but as usual only Iceman takes notice.
Assistance arrives in the form of Officer Chris and his trusty shotgun. He has a few theories as to why this is happening -- overbreeding, misrouted migration, food scarcity -- none of which involve a mystical magic man who controls birds.
 |
| You New Yorkers are so gullible, not savvy like us Alaskans |
In fact, he goes on to say that not only are there no supervillains present, the guy Iceman keeps seeing is just some local nutter called Moon Wolf who claimed to be the Unibomber (sic) after the real guy (Timothee McVee?) was caught.
He reasserts that sometime shit just happens in life and it's not the work of some villain, and bids his friends to get indoors and let law enforcement do their jobs.
Down in Manhattan, the ever-trustworthy Dr. Agee marvels at Rogue's DNA. He notes that he hasn't earned her trust enough to learn her "code name," apparently laboring under the impression that "Rogue" is on her birth certificate.
Anyway, he vows to his sister Rebecca that he will cure her mutation and make her as human, normal and beautiful as her.
Not to bodyshame anyone but I don't think that's what Rogue is going for.
At the Ptarmigan house, the O5 determine that it's time to suit up and do Hero Sh** -- which alarms the boys when they find out exactly what suit Jean means to don.
But enough about that! Melissa is here. The mutants scramble to conceal their identities but the cat's out of the bag -- she already saw Warren and his beautiful blonde locks on top of the house earlier. She also happens to have been in L.A. during the riots caused by Operation: Zero Tolerance, which is the first I'm hearing of this.
She proclaims kinship with the mutants because she's one herself -- she's got twelve toes!
 |
| Honestly, is that any worse than having mutant slugs? Okay yes, it is a bit. |
Out in space, Bishop convinces Deathbird to free him from his bonds to help stop their vessel from hurtling into the sun. She wonders why she should trust him, and he proclaims his love for her. I suppose proclaiming his aversion to being thrown into a sun is not convincing enough?
That's all well and good, but Bishop isn't exactly The Last Starfighter, and the ship is still careening out of control -- toward a planet this time. (There's millions and millions of miles of open vacuum in space, how do they manage to crash into a planet?)
Back on Earth "lightyears later" (???) the team is all suited up but Jean is having flashbacks to everyone's sixties fashions. Is she just feeling nostalgic or is she crazy... or both?
 |
| You'd have to be crazy to pine for the mid-60's X-Men |
The team splits off. Iceman on his own blunders yet again into Moon Wolf, apprehending the would-be shaman he is convinced his commanding these birds.
From the air, Angel and Beast spot some pollution that may be the true answer to the problem -- perhaps the birds are drinking chemicals that are driving them insane!
Cyclops and Phoenix find Chris, who declines any help, either out of racism of just wariness of out-of-towners, we're not quite sure. He also proclaims himself the Sherriff when he was only ever introduced as an Officer -- perhaps he's been drinking toxic runoff too.
The crows start eating him for his trouble, so Cyclops and Phoenix save him in spite of his racism, hustling him inside while they battle the birds.
Jean notices that one of the crows doesn't seem to have any psionic presence -- it's a robot! Maybe that's the key to all of this, and not the shaman or the drinking water.
The other X-Men arrive, including Iceman with Moon Wolf in tow. The possible-wizard-likely-nutjob escapes and apparently commands the crows to unify into a gestalt form. The X-Men, who have spent half their lives as superheroes, wonder whether this is all just a coincidence.
Scott, who has heretofore been forbidden from using his optic blasts for fear of disrupting the healing in his abdominal cavity, unleashes the biggest optic blast you've ever seen.
Predictably, it takes a physical toll.
The threat appears to have subsided, although nobody is clear on exactly what did it -- Scott's blast, Jean destroying the robot bird, or Iceman taking down Moon Wolf.
In the end, nobody is really sure why all this happened, but Hank takes the opportunity to tie it into a larger theme about racism and looking for simple solutions that would actually be a pretty effective Aesop in a better story.
Iceman is disheartened to learn that nobody seems to believe his "Magic Indian" story, although there is a certain amount of credibility there after all.
The end... I hope.
Further Thoughts:
I was so concerned about all the late-70's/early-80's references I was seeing that I didn't see this one coming -- a 1960's throwback, complete with the X-Men blundering into a bad guy while out to dinner, and worrying about being seen outside of their costumes. This is right out of the Roy Thomas playbook. I have a certain amount of affection for kooky campy 1960's stories, but whipping one up in 1998 seems a little (completely) out of touch -- fans these days want big epic storylines guaranteed to change everything, not quaint, self-contained outings with a tacked on message of tolerance.
Gaudy "Magic Indian" plot (or is it "Deluded Indian"?) aside, there was almost some potential here for something cool and creepy with the birds gradually becoming more and more of a threat, and their cause unknown, but alas they went big and broad with it, giving that 60s flavour.
I actually appreciated the "honestly, sometimes the universe is inscrutably random, and that's kind of what leads to prejudice" message of the story, even if it's a little simplistic and a little heavy-handed as Officer/Sherriff Chris hammers away on "We don't need outsiders/we didn't have these problems until you came to town" until he learns a valuable lesson.
And yet, as rudimentary as it is, it's the kind of lesson that is sorely, sorely needed as the United States government looks to blame its problems on every "other" there is, instead of in any way curbing its rapid descent into fascism, here in 2025.
The other problem with doing a story that is intentionally designed to make no sense is that it ends up... not making any sense. When Beast says "Any, all, or none of these things could be true" the mind utterly boggles and not in a good way, considering how many different and seemingly contradictory pieces of information we are given. Were the crows driven crazy by pollutants? Were they under the command of a vengeful god Chulyen? Were the pollutants causing them to see and commune with Chulyen in a way they hadn't before? Where did the robot bird come from, that was real, right? Did Chulyen build a robot bird to guide them? Did Moon Wolf build the robot, perhaps under the direction of Chulyen? Does Moon Wolf have invisibility powers or is it simply that nobody happened to be looking for him except Bobby? It's a lot of mental energy to expend on a comic that is destined to be forgotten as soon as you're done reading it.
No comments:
Post a Comment