Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men 151

[Guest blogger Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men Run. For more in this series, see the toolbar on the right.]

“X-Men Minus One”

Because Dave Cockrum’s style is so un-subtle, he’s easy to take for granted. But, as the tour-de-force of Uncanny #150 demonstrated, he is a superb comic book illustrator, one of the true innovators of the superhero genre. And his presence is badly missed in this and the following issue of the series. On “X-Men Minus One,” art chores are credited to Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod and Josef Rubinstein. (Presumably Sherman and McLeod shared penciling duties, and Rubinstein inked?) Though Claremont and McLeod would go on to share a slick collaborative relationship as co-creators of the New Mutants, McLeod’s work here with Sherman is awkward and stiff. As a result, for the first half of the issue, the storytelling moves along in fits and starts. Characterization and motivation is spotty, as we see Kitty – again, still a 13-year-old girl here -- running around the first five pages in a pink bikini, having arbitrary bursts of emotion. (The premise of “X-Men Minus One,” by the way, is a slight variation on Roy Thomas’ X-Men #24, a story that began with Jean Grey’s parents deciding she needed to leave Xavier’s school. Claremont is further cementing Kitty’s role in the title as a surrogate Jean.)

The plotting is ropey as well, and almost seems half-improvised – note the execution of the reveal that Kitty’s new school is Emma Frost’s Massachusetts Academy, via a giant computer that Kitty apparently keeps in her room. Further along in the story, the first appearance in the issue of Emma herself is executed via long shot rather than close-up, a ridiculously un-dramatic choice.

Claremont also botches the reveal that Storm and Emma have switched bodies, with narration that cheats – why is Storm reluctant to break her loving embrace with Kitty if, at this point, she already has Emma’s mind?

Also, body-switching is a dubious plot idea to begin with. The only time it seems to work is in television series, where the fun comes in watching the actors in the roles of the switched characters try to mimic another actor’s mannerisms. (See: Eliza Dushku impersonating Sarah Michelle Gellar on “Buffy” or John Glover doing Tom Welling on “Smallville.”)

Unusually for a Claremont story, the issue becomes stronger when it switches from angst to action. As soon as the plot switches midway through from the White Queen/Storm material to the Sentinels’ attack on the mansion, Claremont’s writing suddenly snaps awake. These pages are terse and exciting, and contain some creatively choreographed battle sequences. The panel in which Cyclops’ optic blast arrives all the way from a window of the mansion to save Nightcrawler is fun, and the bit with Kurt teleporting from Sentinel to Sentinel – he attaches plastique to each robot’s leg in the span of nine seconds, having “set the detonators for ten” -- is the best moment in the entire issue.

There’s also a subtly humorous depiction of the Sentinel control center beneath the Hellfire Club, run entirely by females. This is either a joke by his artists or self-mockery on Claremont’s own part, poking fun at his own “Is there any reason this character can’t be a woman?” philosophy. (Not long before the publication of Uncanny #151, anti-feminist Dave Sim had made fun of Claremont’s pro-female rhetoric in an issue of Cerebus, wherein a female character turns out to be a man in drag who calls himself Charles X. Claremont – Sim’s implicit logic being, “Is there any reason this character can’t be Claremont?”)

Issue 151 gets off to a dubious start, but its latter half shows Claremont slowly getting his groove back. Most importantly, he is proving that he can still create dynamic and creative action sequences without Byrne’s help.