Essential Avengers volume 6 - creator labels

Once more we have a volume with a lot of labels so here's a separate post for them.

Essential Captain America volume 6 - creator labels

Yet again there is a volume with lots of creators so here's a separate post for some of them.

Essential Defenders volume 3 - creator labels

Yet again we have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.

Essential X-Men volume 4

The original edition of Essential X-Men volume 4 consists of Uncanny X-Men #162 to #179 and Annual #6. Later editions have transferred Annual #6 to volume 3 and added both annual #7 (which I'll look at with volume 5) and Marvel Graphic Novel #5 entitled "God Loves, Man Kills". The writing is all by Chris Claremont. The art on the regular issues sees the end of Dave Cockrum's second run, then a run by Paul Smith followed by the start of a run by John Romita Jr. Annual #6 is drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. The graphic novel is drawn by Brent Anderson.

The high octane excitement continues in this volume, with adventures ranging from an outer space battle with the Brood to smaller scale, more personal adventures such as Rogue's quest to join the X-Men to control her powers that are making her lie impossible. There aren't too many additions to the ever growing extended cast of allies and foes - the most significant are Madelyne Prior, Lockheed the alien dragon and the Morlocks, who include the likes of Callisto, Leech, Plague, Masque, Sunder and Healer. But rather than quantity the series focuses on quality, with each of the new arrivals making an impact in their own way. At the same time there's quite a lot of development of the existing characters.

At one extreme is Cyclops, who is establishing roots in multiple directions. Having already discovered that Corsair is his father, he now discovers his grandparents and in the process meets a surprising woman. Madelyne Pryor is a cargo pilot for his grandparents' company in Alaska - and the spitting image of Jean Grey. More amazingly she was the sole survivor of a plane crash at the very moment that Jean died. At this stage it's never cleared up whether Madelyne is somehow Jean reincarnated or if this just an amazing coincidence, but she and Scott rapidly fall for each other. Within just seven issues of meeting they get married and Scott both leaves the X-Men and declines his father's invitation to go off into space on adventures with the Starjammers. Instead he seemingly retires, flying off with Madelyne to enjoy a happily ever after.

Meanwhile Storm undergoes developments of her own, including temporarily bonding with a young Acanti, a giant fish that flies through space. Subsequently Storm seems to be losing her refinement of her powers and then she decides to change her look, adopting a very 1980s leather costume and mohawk, to Kitty's horror. Kitty herself is continuing to grow and acting on her feelings for Colossus. At times she is highly suggestive to him, a rather disturbing point considering she is only fourteen years old and fortunately Colossus goes no further than kissing. However Kitty gains an affectionate companion of a different kind when she encounters a small alien dragon on another planet; subsequently the dragon comes to Earth and is dubbed "Lockheed", regularly staying by her side and deploying his laser power to help her.

But the biggest developments come with Carol Danvers and Rogue. Carol has been hanging around with the X-Men ever since Rogue stole her powers, but now the Brood subject her to accelerated evolution and hybrid nature results in her gaining the powers of a star as the being Binary. It's a major step forward but not long afterwards she departs for space and so there's little opportunity for further development as she continues to grow her emotions once more. However before she goes she briefly confronts Rogue once more when the latter turns up at the mansion seeking help. Rogue is now portrayed as much younger than in her earlier appearances and very much has the feel of a young, vulnerable woman trying to come to terms with herself and to evade being used by others. This leads to an early fight with Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but Rogue makes clear what her free will is. She also has a rapid baptism of fire when she and Wolverine are the only available X-Men to evade the effects of poison in Japan and Rogue puts her life on the line to save Wolverine, who in turn lends her his healing power. Later on she again risks her own life to help save Colossus and the other X-Men come to accept her. Meanwhile Professor Xavier undergoes a major transformation when his body is destroyed by the Brood but his mind is transferred into a cloned one with fully functioning legs. Although his mind and powers take time to adjust, it seems he will now be able to play a much more active role in future adventures.

This volume comes from the period when the series began to spawn a number of spin-offs. The most obvious ongoing one was the New Mutants, founded whilst the X-Men were away in space, but in general the two teams manage to stay out of the way of each other's adventures apart from a brief fight when the X-Men return from space and discover strangers in the mansion. Beyond that and an issue where Kitty is briefly set to be transferred to the New Mutants until she demonstrates how far she's already come (with the New Mutants themselves noticeably absent), plus the occasional mention and cameo, the New Mutants are almost as distant from these issues as the Defenders. More noticeable was the rise of the limited series, with both Wolverine and Magik (Illyana - Colossus's sister) receiving one. Neither is included here but both are referenced. In particular the Wolverine limited series is followed up on in issues #172-173 which feel almost as though they should have been part of the limited series (and are sometimes collected with it) but it ran out of space. Given the practice in more recent volumes - Essential Defenders volume 7 springs most readily to mind - I wonder if the limited series would have been included had this volume come out in more recent years. (Although there have been some modifications to the contents of the Essential X-Men volumes for new editions, there may not have been enough space to crowbar in a whole extra four issues as well as the graphic novel.) Consequently Wolverine doesn't get as much good material as usual, but both his desperate solo flight from the Brood and his wedding where his bride jilts him, having been convinced he is not worthy, both give him depth on either side of the series. The Magik limited series is rather less noticeable by its absence and seems to cover her missing years in Limbo that are alluded to here.

There are other signs of wider developments at Marvel impacting on the series here. Issue #167 contains one of the oddest scenes in the whole volume as Lilandra learns of events in Fantastic Four where Reed Richards saved Galactus's life and immediately transmits a warning that he will be prosecuted for the subsequent destruction of any known inhabited planet. This isn't remotely relevant to current events in Uncanny X-Men, and hardly a pressing matter for Lilandra who is at this stage a deposed monarch in exile and, as she admits herself, in no position to be rushing around issuing warnings in the name of intergalactic war. It just feels like a gratuitous snipe by Chris Claremont at his former collaborator John Byrne. I was surprised to see that this scene had originally seen print several months before Byrne's better known snipe in Fantastic Four when he declared an earlier Uncanny X-Men appearance by Doctor Doom to have been a slightly out of character Doombot that the real Doom casually disposed of. In the normal retellings of the feud and how it impacted on the comics themselves it's usually Byrne who gets depicted as the proactive antagonistic one, beginning with the Doombot incident, but here is a sign that it seems to have started even earlier and possibly with Claremont.

What is getting a little annoying are the constant references to Phoenix, especially as it's now a few years since her death. They come in multiple forms, especially with Madelyne's resemblance to Jean Grey, but the most blatant come when Storm sees what looks like the image of the Phoenix force in an explosion, and even more so when Mastermind manipulates Madelyne into impersonating a resurrected Phoenix. However the resolution proves crucial as Cyclops saves Madelyne and fully comes to accept Jean is gone, saying a final goodbye at her grave before going on to marry Madelyne. Hopefully this will bode well for future volumes. But just as one irritation seems to be on the way out another is looming with the continued teases about just what Nightcrawler's connection to Mystique is. It was first raised back at the end of volume 2 but is now becoming a never ending subplot with a seemingly obvious solution that she is in fact his real mother. It's one thing to have something never explicitly stated, but the way this is played it feels more like eternally unfinished business.

Included at the end of the original edition of this volume is annual #6, but it feels extremely inconsequential to the series, and its initial absence from volume 3 (and catch-up placement here) has not been noticeable in the slightest. The story sees the return of Dracula and his final showdown with Rachel van Helsing, with Dracula's daughter Lilith thrown in for good measure. It may be resolving leftover matters from the Tomb of Dracula and also following up on Dracula's earlier appearance in X-Men, but the X-Men themselves feel rather out of place in a rather confused storyline focused on vengeance and possession. Still as an annual it's easy to overlook this awkward tale and move onwards.

Also potentially easy to overlook is an addition to recent editions, Marvel Graphic Novel #5, entitled "God Loves, Man Kills". Released at about the same time as issue #167, it shows signs of having been created much earlier, not least because Kitty is here using the codename "Ariel" that she in fact rejected in the regular series, and also wearing a different costume from the norm. The story focuses heavily on anti-mutant prejudice as a zealous preacher declares them unholy and launches a crusade to purify the human race, using Professor Xavier's powers. In the struggle the X-Men find themselves allying with Magneto despite their differences. The world depicted in this tale is much darker than the comics, with the preacher's "Purifiers" seemingly unstoppable as they go about their mission. It's a world of dark alleys, of gangs who try to rape Kitty as payment for protecting her, where people get shot and bleed, where two little children are chased to a playground and murdered, and where a well-connected charismatic speaker can easily sway the crowds. It's one of the better examples of what the graphic novel format can do, presenting a deeper story free of the shackles of the Comics Code Authority, but also keeping it sufficiently standalone that it was not necessary for contemporary readers to pay out almost ten times the price of a regular issue, or for readers then and now to have to track down a harder to find format.

Regardless of the rotating nature of the annuals and graphic novel across different editions of this volume, the regular issues remain strong and solid, showing both diversity of new creation and a willingness to build on existing successful elements. The team's line-up is kept reasonably intact with only Cyclops retiring and Rogue coming on board, allowing for the character development that can only really happen when there's a stable cast. Although some individual elements may irritate they don't detract from the overall thrust of the series that keeps moving forward, offering exciting adventures but also always making the reader care about each and every one of the characters. Nor is there much requirement to obtain additional comics just to know what’s going on, with the spin-off New Mutants title wisely concentrating on a separate line-up of characters, though Wolverine's limited series could have been better explained, especially as it's followed up on but not included here. But overall this volume maintains the series's strong momentum that has been running since the revival, a astonishing achievement after so many years.

Essential X-Men volume 3

Essential X-Men volume 3 first contained Uncanny X-Men #145 to #161 and Annuals #3 to #5. Later editions have seen Annuals #3 & #4 transferred to volume 2; Annual #6 transferred from volume #4 (where I'll look at it) and the addition of Avengers Annual #10. The writing is all by Chris Claremont and most of the art by Dave Cockrum; other issues are drawn by Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod, Bill Sienkiewicz and Brent Anderson. The annuals are drawn by George Pérez, John Romita Jr and Brent Anderson. The Avengers annual is drawn by Michael Golden.

This is predominantly a volume of consolidation and development rather than creation, with very few significant first appearances. Dave Cockrum returns to the series and there's some more space opera with the Shi’Ar but otherwise there's a continued focus on the core characters within a world that is growing steadily more hostile to mutants. There are very few changes to the team - Angel storms out in protest over Wolverine's presence and Cyclops comes back on, but otherwise it's a period of stability for the line-up. We get more use of past X-Men in the form of reservists, with Ice-Man, Polaris and Havok all pressed into service for one adventure whilst Banshee appears more and more in a supporting staff role; his powers not having restored themselves. Another supporting character comes in the form of Carol Danvers, now depowered following events in Avengers annual #10, who hangs around with and helps the X-Men for the time being.

However we get a number of character developments, with Cyclops and Sprite especially benefiting from strong focuses. Within these issues Cyclops and Corsair of the Starjammers finally discover that they are son and father, leading to the inevitable confrontation about why Corsair never came after his son in the orphanage. It's a tense situation at first but soon Scott accepts that his father naturally believed both Scott and Alex had died when their parachute caught fire, whilst the horrific treatment and death of their mother had further distanced Corsair from Earth. The family reunion is handled well and helps add to Scott's character growth as he becomes ever more a strong individual, unfettered by the trauma of his childhood or the loss of Jean. The early issues see him marooned on an island with Lee Forrester, the captain of the ship he signed aboard before they were swept out to sea. Although the island scenario itself drags on for a few too many issues, it shows Scott slowly discovering another woman and moving onwards.

Also growing rapidly is Kitty Pryde, though she retains her youthful optimism and role as the team's little sister. Her crush on Colossus is becoming a relationship, with surprisingly nothing said about their different ages. Otherwise she shows enthusiasm and at times is at the core of a plot's resolution. However one thing that is off-putting is her constantly changing costumes in an attempt to get more individuality than the original style X-Men outfit she is given pre-graduation. At one point she comes up with an outfit that may have resembled early 1980s sparkly fashions but looks hideous and is mercifully subdued by the black and white. On another level she is growing ever closer to both Storm and her dance teacher Stevie Hunter. Issue #148 sees the three on a girls' night out, together with guest stars Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman and the Dazzler, which is interrupted by the introduction of the lonely mutant Caliban who comes searching for company, causing panic and chaos but also making Kitty realise how some mutants like Nightcrawler cannot help their strange appearance and she shouldn't be so uncomfortable around them.

But the biggest developments come for one of the X-Men's greatest foes. Issue #150 brings some of the strongest material yet for Magneto, with further enhancements in a flashback in issue #161. We get the clearest statement yet that he sees himself as a warrior defending his people, the mutants, making him a Malcolm X figure much more so than before. His background is also filled out with the exploration of his drive coming from the horrors he endured in the Holocaust. Rejecting Xavier's vision of mutant-human co-existence as unrealistic, he instead seeks to bring about mutant superiority, securing peace through security. Although there have been hints of this in some of his earlier appearances, we now have a clearly rounded vision of the character that moves him away from the run of the mill would-be world conquering supervillains and into a much more complex character. Yet the same issue also starts him down a new path when he thinks he's killed Sprite. Earlier he had no regrets about sinking a Soviet nuclear submarine that had fired upon his island, yet now that he thinks he's killed a child, he realises he's become like the monsters of his childhood, the guards at Auschwitz who joked as they herded people to their deaths, their lives meaning nothing to them. The horror that he has become a monster to the innocents he sought to protect and the very thing he hated and despised is a striking moment for the character. Was it also meant to be a subtle wider comment about events in the real world? Whatever the external intentions, there is a hint that he changed forever though it is not followed up on within these pages.

Magneto's shift comes not long after the X-Men's first encounter with another world-conquering villain from the early Silver Age. It's quite a surprise that the X-Men haven't clashed with Doctor Doom before now, given how much he's appeared all over the Marvel universe over the years. Here he seems rather subdued, being in exile from his kingdom and operating in a strange alliance with Arcade, with the gamesmaster also Doom's prisoner. Though there's a brief scene with Storm that sees the two slightly drawn towards each other, overall it's a rather disappointing use of such a major foe. Equally weakly handled is Dracula, who shows up for a single issue when he tries to take Storm as a mate, but there's none of the awe and majesty from the character's own series.

The Shi’Ar epic brings the first appearance of the Sidri, a monstrous gestalt alien species, and the fearsome insect race the Brood, as well as Deathbird, previously seen in Ms. Marvel, the sister of Lilandra. She's not the only foe of Carol's to come over, with Rogue also appearing, following on from the Avengers annual. Meanwhile a flashback to the younger days of Professor X and Magneto shows their struggle with Baron von Strucker and a nascent Hydra, giving Magneto his first encounter with leftover Nazi villains. An adventure into a magical realm brings the team into conflict with Belasco, previous seen in Ka-Zar, and new demon S'ym. It's a dark place in which the X-Men find time does not function as normal, bringing them into conflict with older versions of themselves. At the end Colossus's sister Illyanna is briefly lost for what is only seconds for the X-Men but a whole seven years for her. Having gone from six to thirteen, losing much of her childhood in that realm, must be a horrific experience and will hopefully be explored further in later volumes.

One aspect of the series that is slightly stating to irritate are the long drawn out subplots, especially as some of them keep overlapping on multiple Essential volumes and so take an age. Cyclops spends half a year lost on a desert island and then later the conflict with the Brood is stretched out with Professor X mentally wounded for many months. He is cured in the final issue in the volume but then Deathbird and the Brood return in a cliffhanger, with the latter planning to use the mutants as hosts for breeding. Unfortunately the remaining space is then taken up with other, less consequential material.

Lurking at the back of the volume (at least in the original edition) are three annuals. With #1 & #2 having been all-reprint specials in the wilderness years, these are the first original specials for the X-Men and show a variety of foes and guest stars. Two of them feature Arkon, first as an enemy, albeit with noble motives seeking to restore his world, and later as an ally when the Badoon invade; the Fantastic Four also guest star in the latter story. Meanwhile the other one features a trip into what is supposedly Hell, resembling the depiction in Dante's Inferno, with Doctor Strange guest starring and a fight with Minos, a being from Dante's poem. Reading all three annuals back to back, as per the original edition's presentation, it's easy to see why the whole format is so often dismissed and/or overlooked, including sometimes by collected editions. (Not only had Essential X-Men volume 2 left out two annuals, but at about the same time that this volume was making up for this omission, Essential Spider-Man volume 3 was missing out another pair.) None is drawn by the regular series artist of the day and none of the events are mentioned in the regular title. The middle annual may explore some of Nightcrawler's past and reveal his current girlfriend to be his adoptive sister and childhood sweetheart in disguise but it's still easy to blink and miss it. Nor is there any connection with the hint in the previous volume that he and Mystique are related. Placed at the rear of this volume, like an obligatory appendix, they feel like they were almost forced upon it and are being sidelined as much as possible. None feels like a typical, if extended, adventure of the type seen in the contemporary regular series so the annuals don't even work as one-off introductory specials. Of course the same charge can be levelled at many, many annuals for many other series, but it's rare to get three all at once and so the problem stands out the more. Worse still having so many at once has restricted the number of regular issues contained in this volume and possibly increased the necessity of ending on a cliffhanger, one that would be left hanging for nearly three years before volume 4 came along.

Later editions of this volume have also included Avengers annual #10 and it's easy to see why given that both Carol Danvers and Rogue go on to make significant appearances in the regular issues in both this volume and later ones. I've never been too clear as to how much of the issue reflects Claremont's original plans for Ms. Marvel and just when he conceived his plans for Rogue, but here we get a conclusion to Carol's conflict with Mystique that had been building and building and building and building in her own series (Claremont's long-running subplots have not been confined to the X-Men titles). Ms. Marvel gets put through the wringer once more as her powers and mind are absorbed by Rogue; with Professor X's help she regains some of the latter but is left a broken woman trying to put her life back together. The epilogue allows both her and Claremont to confront the Avengers and their writers about how callous they were when she was kidnapped and raped, but otherwise the bulk of the annual is given over to introducing a new foe who takes down the most powerful Avengers quite quickly. Other than the epilogue wouldn't it perhaps have been better to tell this story with the X-Men in their own annual? It would certainly have made a far stronger and more memorable offering than that year's team-up with the Fantastic Four against the Badoon, and the subsequent use of both Carol and Rogue in the regular series would have given the annual a lasting significance. Still that error of placing has now been corrected with its inclusion here.

Although more run of the mill than the two previous Essential X-Men volumes, and limited by the need to include the various annuals, this volume continues to show a series based strongly on character development and a distinct scenario. It takes in a diverse range of locations and threats but manages to stay consistent and true to its core characters, continuing to make them feel real and worth caring about. This is a series that has settled in a clear permanent role for the long run.

Essential X-Men volume 1

This month sees the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past and so it's time for an extended look at the X-Men's most acclaimed era...

Essential X-Men volume 1 collects Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94-119, featuring the early days of the X-Men's mid 1970s relaunch as the All-New, All-Different X-Men. (As we've already seen, issues #1-93 have since been covered by Essential Uncanny/Classic X-Men volumes 1, 2 & 3.) The initial Giant-Size issue is written by Len Wein and drawn by Dave Cockrum. Both carry forward onto the regular series but almost immediately Chris Claremont takes over the writing and continues for the rest of the volume (and over a decade more after that) with a few issues seeing Bill Mantlo give plot assistance. Midway through Cockrum is succeeded by John Byrne. There are a couple of fill-ins drawn by Bob Brown and Tony DeZuniga. The reprint of the Giant-Size issue includes three reprints of back-up features profiling Cyclops, Ice-Man and Marvel Girl written by Roy Thomas, Arnold Drake and Linda Fite respectively and all drawn by Werner Roth.

(It's a little known point but Giant-Size X-Men had a second issue as well, published some four months later. However by this stage the Giant-Size line had switched to all-reprint titles before being eventually phased out a couple of months afterwards. Giant-Size X-Men #2 reprinted X-Men #57-59.)

This was the very first Essential volume to be released back in 1996 and unsurprisingly it does several things differently from its successors. Most obviously it starts reprinting the X-Men from the 1975 relaunch rather than the original 1960s series; later Essential runs such as Doctor Strange, Man-Thing or Silver Surfer have started from the original series and collected subsequent revivals under the same banner. The cliffhanger ending from issue #119 was left out of the original printing but restored early on. And the reprinted material in Giant-Size X-Men #1 has been included whereas most subsequent Essentials have left out reprints unless they've been directly incorporated into the narrative. (On a much more minor note the first editions of the original 1996 volumes - this plus Essential Spider-Man volume 1 and Essential Wolverine volume 1 - have the name on the spine running upwards whereas all later volumes and editions use the more conventional downwards.)

Giant-Size X-Men #1 is one of the most reprinted of all Marvel issues and quite possibly the post-Silver Age record holder. (Mike's Amazing World of Comics lists ten complete reprints plus one truncated, and that's just in the North American market. Discounting one as a cover variant that's still an amazing haul and several reprints ahead of obvious rival contenders such as the first appearances of Thanos, the Punisher, Wolverine or Venom.) The story is to the point, if a bit low key, but does manage to successfully introduce all the new characters. Not much has changed since the ending of the earlier run bar the Beast going out into the world and Havok and Lorna Dane now being an integrated part of the original team and more clearly an item now. Otherwise things are pretty much where they were left. Wisely the story places the emphasis on the new characters and reintroduces the premise through them as Professor X takes an interesting journey around the world, recruiting both new and old characters to assemble a replacement team. With fourteen characters and just thirty-six pages there's not much space to detail them all, but it soon becomes clear that the team has some dysfunctionality. Oddly in light of where he'd go, Wolverine is rather subdued and it's Sunfire who fulfils the angry loner role. I do also find Banshee's dialogue to be overstereotyped and keep wondering when he's going to start getting drunk and rambling on about little people just to complete the role. All in all the issue succeeds in injecting new blood into the series but doesn't offer a great deal of excitement to suggest an ongoing series would be more dynamic than the last time around. That would come later.

The new X-Men are an interesting mixture of both existing and new creations, with a strong international mix. It takes some time for all their powers to be explicitly identified and highlighted and their backgrounds to be filled in, but the diversity is clear from the outset. We have Nightcrawler, a German circus performer with blue fur who can climb walls, teleport and even disappear in the shadows. A few of these elements are familiar from the portrayal of the Beast, but Nightcrawler comes with a very different personality, combining fun loving with great insight and loneliness. Storm is introduced as a Kenyan goddess who can control the weather but we subsequently learn of her upbringing from being the daughter of a transatlantic middle class marriage to being an orphaned street thief in Cairo to her long journey on foot to Kenya. Colossus is a Russian farm boy, loyal to his family, both his birth one and his new adopted one. Banshee had previously appeared as a villain in the series's original run but here the Irishman follows in the footsteps of the Mimic and becomes another to find redemption; despite being older than the rest of the team he still fits in. Wolverine is something of a cipher at first and only slowly is his background revealed; we know from the outset that he's a Canadian government agent from his battle with the Hulk but only gradually do we learn other things about him such as that his claws are part of his body and he has learnt to speak Japanese well, but there's no exploration of his family life and past the way there is with so many others. Sunfire doesn't last long though he pops up again at the end of the volume; his background had been sketched at the end of the original run where we saw a young Japanese man torn between his father and uncle representing the debate on the country's post war direction. Finally Thunderbird is a brash, self-confident Native American Apache who resents the direction his people have taken and seeks to prove himself as a tough fighter in the old tradition.

The X-Men's adventures continue from issue #94 onwards with new material rather than a brand new issue #1, a reminder of how the older practice of retaining numbering wherever possible was still prevalent. However the series rapidly puts itself in a forward direction, starting with the departure of all the original team bar Cyclops, leaving an almost all-new, all-different team. With Sunfire also leaving, having only ever agreed to perform a single mission and Thunderbird killed off at the end of issue #95, the team is reduced to a manageable six field members plus Professor X guiding and mentoring them; a size that allows for the individual characters to be developed and focused upon at a time when the series was bimonthly and had as little as seventeen pages an issue. The Beast, Havok and Lorna Dane (now using the codename Polaris) all make brief reappearances in subsequent stories (presumably the Angel and Ice-Man were too busy with the Champions of Los Angeles) and on two separate occasions the new X-Men face what appear to be the original team members, right down to the Beast's original look, but they are in fact constructs of one kind or another.

However it's Cyclops who is the one classic member to stay around though Marvel Girl drifts back into the team. Cyclops is very much his traditional self but gets some development as well, with his powers enhanced (most clearly symbolised by a new and larger visor) then later more of his past is revealed as we learn how he was orphaned and the revelation that Corsair of the Starjammers is his father, though Scott only guesses at this after their initial meeting is over. There are also steps forward in his relationship with Marvel Girl but then comes her great transformation that also changes how he relates to her such that when he believes her dead there is no great mourning. Marvel Girl's transformation into the Phoenix after she pilots a space shuttle back to Earth and acquires enhanced powers is one of the best remembered moments during the run and there are already signs of how the excess power is changing Jean Grey in multiple ways, making her the most powerful member of the team but also distancing her a little. Professor X also comes to believe his students have perished and this sends him into deep grief but at the same time he and the alien Shi'Ar princess Lilandra are developing their feelings. We also get more of Xavier's past as we learn of his youthful romance with Moira MacTaggart and then his travels around the world as he discovered not all mutants use their power for good. Whether new or old, every member of the team gets given some strong material that fleshes them out and makes the reader care about what happens to them.

The series has ambition, as shown with the Shi'Ar storyline that takes the team into outer space and introduces a large number of characters, but the emphasis is very much on characterisation. Combined with dynamic art that starts well with Dave Cockrum and hits amazing heights with John Byrne, the scripting by Chris Claremont brings to life each character, makes them distinct from one another but also makes the reader care about what happens to them. It's easy to see why the title soon became a cult favourite even if it wasn't engaging in the big crowd pleasers that could draw in a wider audience. Other than the Shi'Ar storyline most of the foes encountered by the X-Men are either return appearances or fairly mundane foes. Except for the Beast briefly returning to his roots there are no significant guest stars. And there's also less of the two big themes that have dominated X-Men in most other eras with only limited attention devoted to how society reacts to mutants whilst the school element is either downplayed or confined to off-panel events as Professor X and Cyclops work to mould the group into a coherent team who function together - a necessity driven home in their second encounter with Magneto when initially every charges in as an individual and gets beaten down in likewise manner.

These battles bring in a variety of foes amidst a period of creativity. The old foe list includes the likes of Magneto, the Sentinels (under a new controller), the Juggernaut, Sauron, Mesmero and Count Nefaria, all from the earlier X-Men issues. There's also the Ani-Men (from Daredevil), Firelord (from Thor), Warhawk (from Iron Fist), Garokk and Zaladane (both from Ka-Zar's strip in Astonishing Tales) and Moses Magnum (from Giant-Size Spider-Man). Amongst new creations are Black Tom Cassidy, Banshee's brother now working with the Juggernaut, the Entity, Professor X's dark side, and Kierrok the Damned and the N'Garai night demons. The Canadian agency Department H makes its first appearance as it dispatches Weapon Alpha (later the Vindicator then Guardian) to try to retrieve Wolverine. The Shi'Ar story introduces a variety of characters including foes such as the Emperor D'Ken, a new wearer of the Eric the Red costume and the Soul Drinker. And there's the Imperial Guard, a thinly disguised homage to the Legion of Super-Heroes (who had been drawn by Cockrum whilst at DC) and the interstellar pirates the Starjammers. These issues must have been a nightmare to drawn with so many new characters, and even more so as Byrne took over from Cockrum mid story.

The series may be highly dynamic but there are, however, some areas where the series feels dated, particularly some of the dialogue that exaggerates accents with Banshee suffering particularly badly though others got caught up as well, including a cameo by Jimmy Carter. The portrayal of Ireland also raised my eyebrows with everything from a post office sporting the crown symbol to passenger steam trains in the late 1970s and I kept expecting someone to start going on about the little people. Then a bunch of leprechauns showed up.

In spite of these odd moments the volume as a whole represents a triumphant return to form for the X-Men. Rather than merely bringing back the existing team for more of the same, a bold move was taken to transform the team for a new generation of readers and it works. Given strong characterisation and dynamic art and the result is a strong series that just grows and grows. This is a very strong volume and (leaving aside the issue of jumping over the Silver Age run) it's truly worthy of having been the very first Essential volume to have been released.

Essential Ms. Marvel volume 1 - creator labels

We have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for them.

Essential Spider-Woman volume 2

Next comes Essential Spider-Woman volume 2, which reprints Spider-Woman #26-50, Marvel Team-Up #97 and Uncanny X-Men #148. This sees the conclusion of the title and this particular Spider-Woman wouldn’t have another for over twenty years. (There would be other Spider-Women in the meantime but they’re now mainly forgotten.)

These issues see the rest of Michael Fleisher’s run, followed by a run by Chris Claremont (who also writes the X-Men issue) and finally a brief run by Ann Nocenti. There’s also a fill-in by J.M. DeMatteis, whilst the Team-Up is by Steven Grant. The art sees runs by Steve Leialoha and Brian Postman, with fill-ins by Jerry Bingham and Ernie Chan. The Team-Up issue is drawn by Carmine Infantino, whilst the X-Men issue is done by Dave Cockrum.

The Team-Up issue, which hasn’t yet been reached by Essential Marvel Team-Up, is a rare one without Spider-Man and instead headlines the Hulk, no doubt because of his TV series. It’s an odd inclusion here as it doesn’t contribute anything to Spider-Woman’s own series and instead just sees her and the Hulk fighting a mad scientist and his monstrous creations in a remote desert town. The X-Men issue’s claim to be here is more arguable because it’s the aftermath of a storyline in Spider-Woman’s own title that sees the X-Men guest-starring for the final battle, but whilst the issue completes the introduction of Siryn it again adds nothing to Spider-Woman, being just another guest appearance and a fight, and could have been equally left out. After all it also guest stars the Dazzler but hasn't been included in her Essentials. The most surprising omission is of Avengers #240-241 which served as an epilogue to the series, undoing much of the conclusion and ending things on a more positive note and putting Jessica Drew into the status quo she’d have for another two decades until the New Avengers came along. Had that been included then the initial story of Spider-Woman could have been told completely across these two volumes. Instead we get the main series itself and it’s really quite appropriate that the series ends with Magnus wiping all trace of Spider-Woman’s existence from everyone’s memory, making it as though she never existed. Because frankly the series is still as forgettable as ever.

Part of the problem is the turnover of writers, with few lasting long enough to make many developments last. Instead, each writer seems to rapidly alter the status quo from their predecessor. So we have Spider-Woman working as a bounty hunter in Los Angeles, followed by Jessica Drew working as a private investigator in San Francisco with Spider-Woman working to enhance the service, and finally the last few issues see a temporary return to Los Angeles followed by what appears to be a rapid dismantling of her San Francisco life in favour of something different when suddenly a final crisis emerges from nowhere and ends it all – for now. To add to the mess we also get changing of the handling of Jessica’s physiognomy and powers – at one point she ditches the drugs to suppress her negative pheromone problem and for most of the rest of the run people don’t find her unsettling – until another writer comes along and briefly uses that aspect. Her powers fluctuate quite a bit, particularly her capacity to recharge and store her electric venom bolts, whilst at times she has super hearing and other times not. (And she apparently lost her power of immunity in an appearance in Marvel Two-in-One that isn’t included here; not that the series itself notices.) And of top of it all the bounty hunter set-up was just dropped into the title back in issue #21 in the first volume, with a promise that a future story would reveal how the set-up came about. That promise is never delivered on. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this title was still being produced solely to secure the intellectual property. Were writers forced onto the title as a contractual obligation? Several of the writers have won huge accolades for their work elsewhere, but there’s little here that soars to such heights. However Steve Leialoha’s art is extremely good, and his longevity on the title (drawing all but two issues in a twenty-two issue run – well that’s epic compared to everyone else) suggests he actually wanted to be there. However Brian Postman’s work on the last four issues does little for me, although there are signs towards the end that had both he and the book lasted longer he would have improved.

The inconsistency is also present in the situations Spider-Woman goes through, but this is a feature common within writers’ runs as well as between them. Is Spider-Woman a series about a costumed crime fighter like Spider-Man or Daredevil, an espionage/world conqueror series like Captain America, a magic and myth series like Thor, or a science fiction/fantasy series like the Fantastic Four? Elements from all of these sub-genres pop up over the course of these issues with the result that Spider-Woman can go from fighting Hydra in one issue to having to cope with the Impossible Man in the very next. Whilst some books can effective juggle a wide variety of scenarios and problems, most are at their best when they decide early on just what sort of series they’re going to be and broadly stick to that. Here it feels like the series is going through all manner of situations and menaces without much great reason, adding to the disjointed nature of the work.

That’s not to say there aren’t some individual stories that work reasonably well on their own. The volume kicks off with an epic focused on the twin troubles of the return of the Enforcer, albeit now as a generic supervillain with a gag, and the manipulations of the press. Issue #26 introduces us to a particularly odious character, the new publisher of the Los Angeles Courier, once a highly respected newspaper but since its take-over by a publisher from the UK it’s become a rather trashy rag. He and his reporters also resort to rather dubious methods to obtain stories, including a willingness to break the law. His name is “Rupert M. Dockery”. Now I wonder who he’s a parody of?! It’s a reminder that even thirty years ago Rupert Murdoch’s approach to journalism had its critics. I’m writing this at a time when in the real world the Murdoch empire is taking a battering, starting with revelations about the way reporters on one of his papers obtained stories through illegal and immoral methods, but the revelations have gone much deeper. So it’s amazing to see such a blatant parody of him engaging in equivalent activities such as arranging for the creation of a supervillain to fight Spider-Woman and then contriving the Enforcer’s escape from prison in order to generate exclusive news stories his papers and television stations will have coverage of. Curiously few people realise what’s going on until a visiting Spider-Man spots the coincidence and follows up the lead. (Now what profession does Jessica subsequently go into again?) But Dockery gets his final comeuppance when Spider-Woman and Captain Walsh obtain a confession and since it’s not enough to convict they force him out of the city’s media. This parody is over thirty years old but it’s still recognisable to those day.

The same storyline sees Spider-Woman’s ally, Scott McDowell, try to save her from the Enforcer and instead winds up wounded by a poison dart and in suspended animation, with Spider-Woman blackmailed by the Enforcer into aiding him so she can obtain the cure for Scott. It’s good to see that both Spider-Woman and Scott care for each other to go to such lengths, but not enough is made of Spider-Woman’s moral dilemma over the situation. It would have been more credible to show her resisting at fist and trying to find an antidote independently below reluctantly accepting the situation. It’s also a sign of her gullibility that she accepts the Enforcer actually has an antidote – when captured he admits he doesn’t. The story also brings in a return guest appearance by Spider-Man, and both spiders have now discovered each other’s name. It takes his intervention to break the chain of the Enforcer’s hold but it could have been achieved by Captain Walsh or another character so this does feel like a more gratuitous guest appearance than is necessary. The narrative doesn’t end there but flows into the next tale as Spider-Woman fights the Fly, a minor Spider-Man villain, and Dr Malus, one of a number of scientists who stay on the sidelines helping the supervillain community. Malus, it turns out, invented the dart and cures Scott – but also injects him with a drug that changes him into a new villain, the Hornet.

Over the years there’s been a lot of discussion about the treatment of women in comics and whether they specifically get a raw deal because of their gender or if it’s just the curse of being major spin-off or supporting characters. Much of this debate stems from the Women in Refrigerators website. I’ll come to Spider-Woman’s fate later, but the treatment of Scott could be held up as a case for the argument that it’s really about putting supporting characters through the wringer. The character is confined to a wheelchair due to a past incident but now serves as an information support resource – a decade or so before DC’s Oracle. When he tries to rescue his partner he winds up very much in the damsel in distress role, held hostage to manipulate the hero, and he’s even stored in a refrigerator! Then he gets turned against his will into a monstrous form to fight the hero, similar to Alicia Masters in the Marvel Two-in-One issues reprinted in volume one. And the Hornet particularly brings out a lot of male stereotyping as he’s written as a very macho, sexist man, with Malus’s drugs massively boosting Scott’s testosterone levels. However he’s ultimately cured quite easily – just a week’s rest in which the drugs are naturally purged from his system. I guess it became clear quite quickly that Hornet didn’t have much ongoing potential as a recurring villain.

This is still a big problem for the series, and the relocation to San Francisco doesn’t solve it. Most of the villains in this volume are either imports from other Marvel series who don’t have a direct connection to Spider-Woman, or they’re forgettable localised creations or both. As well as the Enforcer, Hornet and Dr Malus we also get Turner D. Century, Hammer an’ Anvil, Angar the Screamer, the Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy, Deathstroke and his Terminators (appearing very soon after Deathstroke the Terminator debuted in DC’s New Teen Titans – I assume this was a coincidence), the Flying Tiger, the Silver Samurai, Cthon, Daddy Longlegs, the Gypsy Moth, Locksmith and Ticktock, as well as the forces of Hydra and various organised crime groups, plus a variety of non-costumed foes including crooked businessmen, corrupt small town officials and the like. The Kingpin shows up but on this occasion as the target to be saved rather than the criminal. Whilst there are a few big names on that list, they’re by and large only around for a single story to serve wider purposes. Otherwise the list is full of second stringers and one-offs. They may make for some good individual tales – Turner D. Century’s crusade to replace modern day “immorality” with traditional values from the 1900s makes for a strong tale about the dangers of taking refuge in an idealised past – but overall they add little value with few personalised rivalries built up. Even when villains from earlier in the series are brought back like the Enforcer or the Gypsy Moth they largely go through the motions rather than add anything particularly spectacular to the series.

The two main exceptions are Morgan le Fay and the Viper. Morgan le Fay pops up several times, and brings the revelation that Spider-Woman grew up near the influence of the demon Cthon and was believed to be a pawn of him, but it feels like a clumsy attempt to shoe-horn in an explanation for why an immortal sorceress is so interested in Spider-Woman. Morgan first tries to enlist Spider-Woman to her side but when rejected she swears vengeance. By virtue of her number of appearances and the level of the conflict Morgan le Fay is basically Spider-Woman’s archenemy but it’s an incredibly imbalanced conflict. Magical arch foes can work when the hero has a suitable power level and a background with myth and magic in it, but here it feels clumsy. The theme of Cthon’s influence also comes up in a multi-part story the Hydra, the Silver Samurai and the Viper. Here we get the revelation that the Viper arranged for Spider-Woman to be recruited into Hydra and she is in fact Jessica’s mother. Yes the mother who was supposed to have died when Spider-Woman’s origin was revised at the start of the series. That particular inconsistency isn’t really resolved here (although later on it would be retconned away) and instead we get a retcon just to reinforce the ties between Spider-Woman and Hydra; ties that have not really played much of a part in the series. And with this (#45) being Claremont’s penultimate issue the ties are swiftly forgotten again for the remainder of the run. I’m not sure what this revelation really adds to either character and once again it shows just how poorly established and developed Spider-Woman’s backstory is. The Cthon link is explored as it’s revealed that the demon has had the Viper as his slave for half a century, hoping to use her to escape from his realm but she proved flawed and so he now hopes to use her daughter. Again this is all mystical stuff that doesn’t really feel naturally connected to Spider-Woman’s more normal run of adventures.

Better handled are Spider-Woman’s supporting cast. By far the most prominent is Jessica’s best friend Lindsay McCabe who is about as close to a depiction of a lesbian as you can get in c1980 Marvel Comics. She sticks with Jessica through thick and thin, and works out her identity early on but doesn’t let on until after she’s been badly injured falling off a roof with the Viper and Jessica decides to confess up. Subsequently she gets involved in further adventures, including giving relationship guidance counselling to the Impossible Woman! (Another female spin-off because the Impossible Man wanted a mate. But neither of them understands relationships which just adds to the madness.) Unfortunately with changing writers she does get left on the side at times – in particular she’s absent from most of the early issues of this volume before a new writer and status quo comes along. Sadly for Lindsay, Jessica finds a boyfriend in San Francisco in the form of David Ishima, their landlord. David brings an early storyline when he discovers the building he’s working on is for a criminal organisation, but otherwise drifts onto the sidelines and it appears the next writer sets things up to ditch him altogether by having him unable to accept both sides of Jessica’s life. However because of the shortness of the run the actual break comes in the very last issue. The one other recurring character of note is Lieutenant Sabrina Morrell of the San Francisco police force who becomes a recurring reluctant ally and associate of both Spider-Woman and Jessica. Like a number of others she is sharp enough to work out the secret identity and she is also a member of the shadowy Yakuza organisation, a Japanese clan. In Claremont’s last issue the Yakuza are revealed as an organisation dedicated to protecting the powerless, whether inside the law or outside it. There is clearly more potential in the Yakuza but once again we get another change, the dropping of possibilities and characters and a new direction for the final few issues.

The last four issues are by Ann Nocenti and see the series wandering once more, almost literally with two of them taken up with a brief return to Los Angeles. Spider-Woman tackles a string of characters who are not bad but rather frustrated with aspects of their lives – a would-be dancer who’s too short until he fools with Giant-Man’s growth serum, the Gypsy Moth just seeking attention and affection, and a runaway boy with no control over psychic powers that cause chaotic destruction whenever he’s upset. All three, plus the guest starring Tigra and other foes are then captured by Locksmith, a former escape artist who saw audiences dwindle due to superheroes and so now captures them and imprisons them in specially designed cells, and his sidekick Ticktock who can foresee the near future. Spider-Woman saves the day halfway through the double-sized issue and we get a strange follow-up as she freely invites everyone to her home for a party, not even caring about her secret identity. Okay a lot of people have figures it out, but she’s hardly gone public with it and taking some former foes is really risky. The party sees her finally break up with David, wiping the slate clean then suddenly Magnus reappears in spirit form after having been completely absent for some four years. He reveals he’s a ghost who takes others’ forms and she’s never seen his real self – once again altering a character from what was see before. Morgan le Fay has been attacking Jessica with illusions but is based in the sixth century and Magnus explains they must astrally travel in time to defeat her, so Spider-Woman’s spirit form laves her body and goes back to do this. But on her return she finds her body dead, thanks to Morgan’s final act. Jessica faces death and asks Magnus to cast a final spell to wipe everyone’s memory of her. Then she walks off into the afterlife and the series ends.

My dislike for the magical elements of the series has been stated enough by now, so all I’ll say on this is that the universal mind wipe is a very easy plot device to remove all traces of the character and cut out loose ends so future writers wouldn’t have to worry about the series. But it brings different problems such as what happens to Spider-Woman’s body? How do all the party guests react to each other when they can’t remember who brought them there? What happens to all the other consequences of Spider-Woman’s actions? It’s bad enough to kill off a character with good potential just because her own series wasn’t selling well enough. But to try to make it as though she’d never existed is even worse. I don’t know if there were developments in corporate or intellectual property practices at the time so I have no idea if it was now the case that Spider-Woman was no longer needed. I suspect not as a new character using the name showed up a year later in Secret Wars – and she also appeared without a clearly defined backstory and set-up at outset. Had somebody realised that the character was a creative mess, with a backstory regularly revised and tied in umpteen knots, and decided that the only solution was to literally wipe the slate clean and start again with a new Spider-Woman? But whatever the reasons it’s a very poor way to end a character’s series, even if it was a pretty poor series anyway.

Of all the Essential volumes I’ve reviewed so far, the two Spider-Woman ones are by far the weakest, because of the ever changing set-ups and poor situations the character is put through. About the only clear idea that ever stuck was “Don’t make her too much of a female Spider-Man”. She’s to be credited for not being a more direct derivative of the male character, and the series understandably tried to avoid being an urban crime-adventure series like its counterparts. But when a core aim is to not be something and another is “be in print” it leaves a complete lack of defining principles and direction. As a result just about every writer brought their own take on the character and there’s little character and situation building across the series as a whole. The result is a massive missed opportunity. The character certainly had potential and interest, and in the right hands could have become a big hit for Marvel. Instead she seemed to be an assignment dumped on writers and it shows. “To know her is to fear her!” proclaimed the tagline on an early version of the logo, used on the volume’s cover (although none of the issues in here use it). I wonder if that reflected how many in Marvel felt at the time?