GENERATION X/DRACULA ‘98 - December 1998

Children of the Night

Credits: Joseph Harris (writer), Tomm Coker & Troy Hubbs (art), Comicraft (letters), Felix Serrano (colors)

Summary: Chamber is haunted by strange dreams, as Dracula takes refuge in an abandoned church not far from Gen X’s school. While watching a movie with Synch and Banshee, Chamber is attacked by one of Dracula’s thralls in the theater's bathroom. Meanwhile, Dracula slips into the mansion and kidnaps Husk. The team unites and tracks Dracula to the church. Husk is rescued, but Chamber is stunned when Dracula restores his missing body parts. Following Husk’s lead, Chamber rejects Dracula’s influence and opens the curtains. Dracula evaporates in the sun, and the church collapses. Husk assures Chamber that this wasn’t “real,” unaware of the bite marks on his arm.

Continuity Notes: While synching Banshee’s sonic powers, Synch asks Banshee how he talks while “doing this.” I believe the official explanation is that Banshee cannot talk while using his sonic scream (see the opening of Uncanny X-Men #255), but due to the odd mechanics of word balloons, it often appears that he is speaking. Another example of strange word balloon mechanics would be characters reciting entire speeches while leaping in mid-air, which I didn’t really notice as a kid until Wizard made fun of Jim Lee for doing it in WildC.A.T.S. (EDIT: A commenter has informed me this scene was actually in Cyberforce.)

Review: I’m starting to wonder about the editing of Marvel’s 1998 annuals. Not only did the ’98 Uncanny X-Men annual duplicate a scene from a recent X-Men issue, but now Generation X is recycling the 1997 annual. I can’t blame anyone for forgetting the ’97 annual, as it was dreadful even by annual standards, so here’s a recap: Chamber discovers the rest of Generation X acting odd, which he soon learns is due to D’Spayre, who later restores Chamber’s original body as a part of his scheme to…do something. The 1998 annual has Generation X questioning Chamber’s odd behavior, which they soon learn is due to Dracula, who later restores Chamber’s original body as a part of his scheme to…do something. I realize it could be difficult to keep up with every X-title published, even within the span of a few years, but shouldn’t your current annual not duplicate the basic plot from just the previous year?

Overlooking the similar plots, the story still has major issues. While the pairing of Generation X and Dracula is a creative use of Marvel continuity, the characters aren’t given any real reason to be in the same story together. Dracula apparently just likes mutant blood, and has selected Chamber as his ideal target. Why exactly he’s wasting so much time entering Chamber’s dreams, teasing him with ideas of how “the powerful” should behave, is unclear. Maybe Dracula honestly views Chamber as more than just a hamburger, but the story never explains why he’s so interested in Chamber, or what his future plans for him would be. There’s more than enough text in this comic, unfortunately most of it’s wasted on tedious gothic narration rather than clarifying the villain’s motivation.

The ending is also a mess, as apparently the cast refuses to believe that their fight with Dracula was real, even though they’re standing in the ruins of the church that was destroyed during their fight. (Why would Dracula evaporating in the sun destroy the church, anyway?) Or is it only Chamber’s metamorphosis that was never “real”? Who can tell. And while I realize the non-ending that hints that Chamber might now be a vampire is a nod to the horror movies that inspired the story, it’s not a great way to end what’s essentially annual filler. I’ve gone through the comic three times and can’t find when exactly he was supposed to be bitten, anyway. So, as a story, this is just as disappointing as the previous annual it unintentionally imitated, but thankfully the art isn’t another bland Jim Lee rehash. Tomm Coker and Troy Hubbs fit the mood perfectly, and rival even Chris Bachalo when it comes to drawing Chamber.

LOGAN: SHADOW SOCIETY - December 1996

Credits: Howard Mackie (plot), Mark Jason (script), Tomm Coker & Keith Aiken w/Octavio Cariello (art), Christie Sheele & Malibu (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Neil Langram, partner of Canadian special agent Logan, is killed by Sabretooth. Logan and his friend Carol Danvers investigate his murder and uncover a conspiracy to keep the existence of mutants a secret. They find Dr. Perry Edwards, an author who has written a book about the rise of superhumans, on a list held by a secret branch of Department H. Logan and Carol travel to America and protect him from agents sent to kill him. Perry’s research has pointed him towards the Hellfire Club, where Logan investigates but finds no answers. Sebastian Shaw watches the incident and asks Sabretooth to intervene. Back in Canada, Logan and Carol discover the bodies of Dr. Edwards and numerous government officials. Sabretooth appears, explaining that mutants are choosing sides and rogue agents must be killed. Sabretooth sets off a bomb, but Logan’s powers enable him to survive and protect Carol. As Carol recovers from her injuries, Logan leaves Department H and heads for the Yukon.

Production Note: This is a forty-eight page bookshelf format book, with a cover price of $5.95.

Continuity Notes: Where to start on this one? The story takes place during Wolverine’s days as a secret agent. This is after his Cold War stint with Team X, but before the Weapon X project that gave him an adamantium skeleton. The ending is problematic since it has Wolverine abandoning Department H (and Department H apparently turning against him) and moving to the Yukon. The Weapon X serial opens with Wolverine still working as a Department H agent when he’s kidnapped and implanted with adamantium.

Carol Danvers’ role lead many people to question if this story was even canon when it was released. The story keeps reminding us that she’s younger than she seems (she claims to be under the legal drinking age at one point), but Wolverine keeps making references to the number of years they’ve worked together. I wonder if the “she’s so young” lines were added after the story was plotted when someone realized that Carol isn’t old enough to fit in with this time in Wolverine’s life. However, there’s still a cameo by Angel as a boy during the Hellfire Club scene, which would make Carol at least ten years older than him. Making this even murkier is Wolverine #-1, which takes place after Wolverine is bonded with adamantium, and has Wolverine meeting Carol Danvers for the first time. Wolverine has memory issues, but Carol doesn’t, does she?

Another potential continuity problem is Wolverine facing a group of Hellfire Club guards years before their first “official” meeting during the Dark Phoenix Saga. Also, the Hellfire Club has an “Inner Circle” at this point, but I believe that term didn’t exist until Sebastian Shaw took over years later. In their earliest appearances during the Claremont/Cockrum UXM issues, they were the “Council of the Chosen.”

Let’s just declare this one “out-of-continuity,” okay?

Review: Before Wolverine officially had annuals, Marvel would release one bookshelf format Wolverine comic each year, usually with a pretty high-profile creative team. Wolverine already had annuals by 1996, but that didn’t stop Marvel from producing a few more bookshelf comics. It’s possible a series of these were planned, as another Logan one-shot was released in 1996. If you’re willing to overlook the continuity headaches (although that seems to defeat the purpose of a prequel story), this actually isn’t half-bad. The basic idea focuses on what exactly Wolverine and Sabretooth were doing when the existence of mutants first became public knowledge, which is an era that’s largely been ignored. We know that Wolverine and various other characters from the X-universe had superheroic adventures in the shadows for decades, so exploring what they were doing as Professor Xavier and Sebastian Shaw began searching for mutants has potential. I’m not familiar with Mark Jason’s other work, but he manages to write a natural, believable script for much of the story (I really wish he’d drop the “best there is” lines, though). Considering some of Howard Mackie’s clunkers on X-Factor during this era, perhaps it’s best that he didn’t finish the issue.

Wolverine is normally clothed as a redneck while in civilian clothes, but Tomm Coker pushes the secret agent angle and instead dresses him in tight dress shirts and sunglasses (which look rather feminine to me, but I doubt he was going for that). It reminds me of the metrosexual makeover the character received after the first X-Men movie came out, although thankfully we’re spared the soul patch. The new look doesn’t really suit the character, but Coker’s art is still the highlight of the book. His style is somewhere in-between Bill Sienkiewicz, John Romita, Jr., early Chris Bachalo, and Klaus Janson. If I’m naming that many people it means I have no idea how to describe his style, but it suits the tone of the story and seems appropriate for a more “artistic” prestige-format book. A few of the pages look a little awkward, which might be the ones handled by the co-artists. The final product, though, looks very nice overall. If the story went through a few rewrites, I could see this worthy of its lofty format.

WOLVERINE #76 – December 1993

Northern Dreams

Credits: Larry Hama (writer), Tomm Coker (pencils), Al Milgrom (inks), Pat Brosseau (letters), Kevin Somers (colors)

Summary

After Wolverine gets into a motorcycle accident, a group of bikers follows the address in his pocket and takes him to Heather Hudson’s home. Wolverine continues to recuperate and asks Hudson to do some research into the Weapon X project. Lady Deathstrike trails Wolverine and finally tracks him to Heather Hudson’s home.

Continuity Notes

Heather Hudson finds a paper by Dr. Monica Hines on “the apparent effect of complex metallic salts on the immune system and tissue regeneration”. Hines is the female scientist in the Weapon X project who was killed off a few issues earlier. Wolverine is convinced that his immune system doesn’t work without the adamantium. This is an odd conclusion to make, because I’m pretty sure Wolverine was shown using his healing factor before he received the adamantium.

Wolverine is smoking again, after he quit in the previous issue. I could have sworn that there was a period during this era where he really did stop, but I could be wrong.

Review

To say that this issue is light on plot would be an understatement, but it’s successful in establishing a new tone for the series after the events of Fatal Attractions. Wolverine’s gone from repeatedly bragging about being the “the best there is” at what he does, to thought captions like “I’m all used up and hurtin’ and I sure want to go home…before all the wild things come snappin’ after me.” It reminds me of Claremont’s treatment of Wolverine during his final days on Uncanny X-Men (when Jubilee was nursing him back to health), but Hama’s able to make the character’s disposition not seem like a retread of a previous story. It’s interesting that there’s no background given on Heather Hudson, Puck, Alpha Flight, or Lady Deathstrike in this issue. For the most part, you can figure out how the characters relate to Wolverine by their role in the story, but it does seem to go against Marvel’s “every issue is someone’s first” ethic of the era.

Continuing the tradition of odd guest artists for this title, Tomm Coker fills in for Adam Kubert. If I remember correctly, Coker once gave an interview to Wizard saying that he dropped out of comics for a few years and re-taught himself how to draw after seeing his work on this issue. I wouldn’t say that his work here requires such drastic action, but it’s certainly not what you would expect to find in a mainstream superhero comic. Some pages remind me of Mike Mignola or Kevin Nowlan, while other pages seem more sloppy than expressionistic. I remember that a friend of mine, just getting into comics from the X-Men cartoon, hated the art in this issue. Even if some of the pages are hard to look at, he does a good job with Wolverine’s hallucinations, and the quiet scene between Heather and Wolverine towards the end of the issue looks nice. I remember that Coker returned to comics with a Gen 13/Maxx special, which looks a lot better than this issue, but I don’t know what he’s worked on since then (a quick Google search shows that he’s involved in the film industry, apparently).