The X-Men take the fight to the Church of Humanity
Originally Published January 2002
We begin in Hot!lanta, where the Church of Humanity are running roughshod over the headquarters of the CDC (and its "Pro Mutant Research Lab" -- conveniently opened only after the Legacy Virus was cured) only to encounter some unexpected resistance.
They teleport away, but not before Stacy X -- who was only meant to be an observer but can't help herself when she sees a chance to do some kicking -- uses her pheromone powers to make a guy barf.
 |
| If ya got it, flaunt it -- "it" in this case being the ability to make bigots puke all over themselves |
Luckily, Iceman thought ahead and put a little bad guy in the freezer for later.
At the Church of Humanity's cathedral in Montana -- birthplace of modern philosophical thought -- the Supreme Pontiff... pontificates... about his... supremacy, I guess, all while being rendered in a spooky and arresting abstract Ashley Wood style.
While Wolverine takes their captive cardinal to be interrogated, newbie StaceX mucks around with the teleportation suit and gets herself zappedl
 |
| Half a swearword?! Now you know it's Marvel in 2001 |
In the remote reaches of James Bay, Logan threatens his prisoner by reciting some warmed-over tough guy dialogue.
Suitably intimidated, our boy decides to tell us everything he knows.
And when I say everything, I mean everything.
We begin hundreds of years ago, with a man known to the CoH cultists as "All Father," a Grizzly Adams type frontiersman... and his magic sperm.
The recipient of this holy load was Allfather's Unnamed Native Wife, who proceeded to give birth under a lunar eclipse, a sure sign of a great things to come (or that the Earth was blocking the light of the sun.)
They had an idyllic life: log cabin, open prairie, occult powers. They used their magic to summon some kind of blue ox man (Babe?) And naturally, he and Mrs. Allfather get frisky.
 |
| Listen, I don't say this very often, but... what the f**k am I reading? |
Anyway, after a few rounds of "Where The Wild Things Are," Big Blue and Mrs. Allfather conspired to kill the man of the house, leading the future Supreme Pontiff Allfather Jr with an inherent hatred of "inhuman things" and honestly... fair enough?
Wolverine, a mutant who has fought demons, wizards and aliens, is skeptical.
Back in Ashleywoodland, Stacy X -- who has converted to Hinduism mid-teleportation -- arrives at her destination. Much like Hozier, she has been taken to church.
Naturally, the Churchies have something ominous in store for her.
But back to the adventures of Young Supreme Pontiff, as we catch up with him living in "the new city" at the dawn of the industrial revolution. He gets his portrait done by a blind painter, which foretells his future greatness, or at least his sartorial choices.
Later, he links up with some kooky Jules Verne sorcerer-scientists who slingshot his consciousness across the universe, presumably for yuks.
Upon his return, he is placed in some kind of tube, which he karate-chops his way out of, thus earning the undying loyalty of the men who put him there.
Wolverine remains dubious, but a story with that many specific details and bizarre twists just has to be true. Before he can interrogate further, Nightcrawler radios in to say that they've got to go rescue Stacy.
 |
| Good thing she wore her anti-gravity bra today |
So the Pontiff tortures her into revealing the secrets of the X-Men, which causes her to go into her backstory, beginning back when she was a teen queen at Riverdale High.
Tragically, her snakeskin mutation manifested, leaving her an outcast, crying under her Milli Vanilli poster.
Eventually, she is tossed out of her home and gets into trouble with the law, which is when she met... this guy.
That's right, Stacy X was one of the original X-Men! She regales us with tales of her training, her young romance with "One Eye," all that stuff.
Eventually, Stacy was sent on a top secret mission, to infiltrate the X-Ranch...
which she ended up running, yeah that's the ticket. She was real successful too, always handling big loads... of cash.
That takes us up to yesterday, when the Church attacked, and well, you know the rest.
The Pontiff, who once killed the blue bovine man that boffed his mom, is dubious.
So he cranks up the torture machine and walks away.
The X-Men get a lock on her signal with their portable Cerebra, but indicate it's faint, meaning she's close to death. But I don't know, she seems okay enough to incapacitate a guard.
The X-Men show up to the miraculously now non-wonky-looking Cathedral and start wrecking the place.
Chamber liberates Stacy from her cell. Apparently she just knocked that guy out for fun and didn't really have any follow-up.
Elsewhere, Nightcrawler has an interaction with the Supreme Pontiff and his Darth Vader egg. After subduing the X-Man with a zap, he has some kind of ominous fate in store for our hero.
He then turns the Ashley Wood filter back on, gathers his forces and declares their holy ground tainted, so it's time to vamoose.
Also it may or may not be snowing now?
The X-Men regroup, with the entire facility now abandoned. They find Kurt and revive him thanks to Stacy's powers.
Kurt, however, is a little loopy, and seems to have lost some of his memories in the process.
Despite a haranguing from Stacy, Kurt does not manage to remember, but it doesn't matter. They get in their plane and fly away, back to Westchester to make a rare stop at the Xavier School, so Stacy can take a bathroom break.
Outside, Kurt sulks about his memory lapse, but Wolverine console him, noting that it's pretty common around here. Still, Kurt muses that it's as though some kind of dark secret has been placed in him. What could it all mean?
Support Uncanny X-Cerpts on Patreon and get more!
Further Thoughts:
A big round milestone number only comes around every, oh, eight years or so, so when it does, it behooves you to do something major. The most notable thing about this issue is the variety of artists used. How convenient that there hasn't really been a consistent artist on Uncanny X-Men in months by this point, so the opportunity is right for a "jam" issue, to mix and mingle the work of artists as varied as the classicist Cully Hamner and Javier Pulido to the post-modern Ashley Wood. Conceptually, I don't think it's a bad idea to have given a unique art style to scenes taking place within the Cathedral, to really disorient the reader and make it feel all the more otherworldly. Obviously, one wouldn't want the X-Men comics to look that way every month, but it's an interesting treat. Given the reliance on flashbacks and shifting narratives that may or may not be factual accounts, I didn't mind the artistic roulette gimmick at all.
That said, I'm here from the future to tell you that lack of consistent art is going to plague this series for a long, long time, and it's not always going to be easy to overlook. And consider: New X-Men isn't drawn by Frank Quitely every month but I'm not over there saying that art looks inconsistent -- the look and feel manages to stay the same from issue to issue thanks to deft casting of artists. Uncanny isn't a book that knows what it wants to look like, or fundamentally what to be.
I do think, however, that there was a bit of mistiming. We've only just started learning about the Church of Humanity, I don't think readers were clamoring for a double-sized issue exploring their origins, especially since so much about their means and goals is still held back. In this big oversized issue commemorating so many years of the X-Men, it might have been nice to see and hear from, you know, The X-Men a bit more.
While I can appreciate that Joe Casey is doing what he does in the pages of Uncanny with intentionality -- on his Substack he owns all the decisions and alludes to his thinking in delivering them -- he doesn't have quite the command of concept, structure or execution that Morrison or Claremont do, with the story kind of spilling itself haphazardly: the X-Men go to a ranch and get attacked, then they go to the CDC for some reason and fight more Churchies, then Stacy stumbles into their base and we have to rescue her. Okay, so he doesn't stack up to two of the best to ever do it, that's not something to be ashamed of. But to paraphrase Bianca Del Rio, what do you do well?
I actually liked the "Stacy's Origin" sequence. Sure, it was almost ridiculous that the damn thing goes on for five pages before we find out she's jerking our chains, and then another two after that. And intentionally or not, it's almost exactly the same as Claremont's origin for Sage, but anyway. I thought it was funny and a good way to help establish her character as being mischievous, sardonic, someone who fucks with others' heads. I think Casey has that sideways, outsider mentality, and his work would have been more welcome on a less flagship title, one where he wasn't competing for breathing room with Morrison and Claremont and positing these major characters and marquee adventures. In an environment where there was less pressure to excel, and fewer guardrails -- even self-imposed ones -- to hit the mainstream.
Like, yes, Morrison was also not the definition of "mainstream," but they had the power to take their outsider perspective to the world and induce people to get on their level.
And the less said about the Supreme Pontiff's origin the better. I gather that, being paired with Stacy's own falsehoods, it's not meant to be taken as gospel (so to speak) but again, we are given six pages of that nonsense, which gets more and more comically bizarre the longer it goes. If this had been in, like, a Deadpool comic, I'd have thought it was hilarious, but I'd like Uncanny to have a bit more grounding. You know?
My verdict to date on the Joe Casey run of Uncanny is that his heart, and imagination, were in the right place, but he wasn't ready for prime time.
No comments:
Post a Comment