JLX UNLEASHED! #1 - June 1997

The Unextinguishable Flame!

Credits: Christopher Priest (writer), Oscar Jimenez (penciler), Hannibal & Rodriguez (inks), Patricia Mulvihill (colors), Ken Lopez (letters)

Summary: The fire-dragon Fing Fang Flame, reanimated by the Hellfire League of Injustice, causes mayhem across the planet. Amazon, against the wishes of her JLA teammates, seeks the help of Mr. X and the imprisoned JLX. Mr. X takes the unstable metamutant Chaos out of suspended animation and travels with the JLX to Tokyo. Chaos is believed dead in battle, inspiring his brother Apollo to snap out his comatose state and absorb the magic fueling Fing Fang Flame. As the authorities arrive, Amazon decides to join the team.

Continuity Notes: The Hellfire League of Injustice merges the Hellfire Club and Injustice League. Chaos is an amalgam of Havok and Spitfire. Only one year later, the name Chaos (or "Xaos") will be used for another Havok amalgam, this one belonging to Cerebro’s team of X-Men.

Review: Just looking at the credits makes it obvious this was one of DC’s contributions to the Amalgam event (although Priest would be back at Marvel by the next year, ending a solid ten-year break with the company). That doesn’t stop JLX from leaning heavily towards the Marvel side, though. Priest has the speech patterns of the X-titles down cold, making this almost indistinguishable from something Scott Lobdell or Fabian Nicieza might’ve written in the ‘90s. The team’s recovering from the government’s latest android attack, Chaos hates Mr. X, Apollo is comatose, Iceberg is desperate to prove herself, Runaway is pining for her missing boyfriend, and Nightcreeper can’t stop cracking jokes. All the team needs is one or two alleged traitors. Actually, I guess they’ve already been betrayed, as Firebird is now the Hellfire member Dark Firebird.

I remember rumors that Priest was considered for the Uncanny X-Men job that went to Joe Casey…I wonder if anyone making that call had ever read this comic? Would this material pull the decision in his favor, or was this the kind of X-comic “New Marvel” was desperate to get away from? Regardless, it’s a shame he didn’t get the assignment. Aside from the fact that it’s hard to imagine anyone not named Chuck Austen doing a worse job than Casey did, it’s obvious Priest knows how to handle this material. The previous JLX one-shot suffered from what seemed to be a snide dismissal of the source material; Priest is able to bring some humor to the concept without mocking the elements that made the X-titles so popular in the first place. There are a few storytelling problems with the issue (Chaos apparently dies twice during the story, but neither scene is very clear), but this is by far one of the better X-related Amalgam comics.

JLX #1 - April 1996

A League of Their Own!

Credits: Gerard Jones & Mark Waid (writers), Howard Porter (penciler), John Dell (inker), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Gloria Vasquez & Heroic Age (colors)

Summary: The Judgment League Avengers face off against the JLX, a group of former members aligned with accused eco-terrorist, Aqua-Mariner. Mr. X uses his telepathic powers to distract the JLA and allow JLX to escape. JLX travels with Aqua-Mariner to find Atlantis, the ancestral home of mutantkind. They find the city abandoned, and are soon attacked by Will Magnus and his Sentinel robots. During the fight, Mr. X is forced to reveal his hidden Martian powers to defeat the Sentinels. Although they’re shocked by Mr. X’s true identity, JLX decides to stay with their ally.

Continuity Notes: The JLX consists mostly of mutant ex-members of the JLA. The line-up includes Mr. X (Martian Manhunter, posing as a mutant and wearing a Bishop-style “M” on his face), Apollo (Cyclops and the Ray), Aqua-Mariner (Namor and Aquaman), Mercury (Quicksilver and Impulse), Runaway (Rogue and Gypsy), Wraith (Gambit and Obsidian), Firebird (Phoenix and Fire), and Nightcreeper (Nightcrawler and the Creeper). In this reality, Will Magnus is Magneto’s brother, which is a play on Magneto’s original “real” name of Magnus.

Review: What does it say about 1996 that Marvel and DC gave us JLX instead of JLAvengers? Amalgam happened to occur during Mark Waid’s brief association with the X-Men, so it makes sense that he would help to develop one of the Amalgam X-teams, although I'm sure he would've had more fun with the Avengers characters. I have mixed feelings about this one. In a way, it captures the Amalgam sentiment, as the book is filled with references to imaginary storylines (The JLA has split! Angelhawk is secretly a mutant! Wraith’s darkness is slowly tainting Runaway!), and it’s hard to fault the characters chosen to be amalgamated. Martian Manhunter working as an undercover X-Man? Will Magnus creating the Sentinels? Nightcreeper -- a cool visual and funny in-joke? This is good stuff. The execution is iffy, though. Aside from Porter’s inconsistent art, the script is often a bore. I can’t tell if the overwrought dialogue is intentionally or accidentally bad, but either way it drags the book down. If this is deliberately a parody of the X-style, it’s so dry that it’s hard to read it as a joke. And were any other characters held up for ridicule during the Amalgam event? Singling out the X-Men doesn’t seem fair.