Since I've rarely brought it up here, you may have guessed I didn't love the Fox
X-Men cartoon as much as most. Not just because
Batman: the Animated Series was better; or because I wanted Nightcrawler episodes, with fun Nightcrawler, not "why has God forsaken me" Nightcrawler. Although, I do love any episodes with
Bishop still trying to push that rock uphill. Huh, could've sworn I was going somewhere with this intro; but let's get to today's book: from 1997,
Adventures of the X-Men #11, "Tower of Despair" Written by Ralph Macchio, pencils by Yancey Labat, inks by Ralph Cabrera.
After an adventure in the Mojoverse, Jean Grey and Storm were supposed to be teleported home, but have instead landed in a swamp. They are of course immediately beset by hillbillies, and within three pages the Man-Thing shows up. While Storm is concerned after the Man-Thing lights a guy up with his touch, Jean realizes she'll be fine as long as she doesn't show fear, and Manny tries to reach out to her, which gives her the short form of his origin. Jean is struck by the tragedy, of Ted Sallis barely even remembering being human; but traditionally Man-Thing is portrayed as more mindless than that.
Back at the X-Mansion, Cyclops and Gambit have returned safely, then check in with the Professor to find the others. Before the Professor can start looking, they are interrupted by a message from Lilandra, warning them that the M'Kraan Crystal was acting up and might engulf all reality. Just a heads-up there.
Making their way to Citrusville, Florida; Jean and Storm are troubled by the incredibly glum townspeople; who are collectively so depressed they can barely gather to hear "the
glorious words of
Godfrey Silverton." (Hey, that
rings a bell...) Jean can't read Silverton's mind, which pretty much screams bad guy, so they take a room for the night to see what happens. Namely, the townspeople gathering like zombies, as Silverton reveals himself to be D'spayre! Yeah, that hope and enlightenment he promised? No such thing! It's a meaningless existance and there's no reason to go on, except for D'spayre to harvest their hopelessness to build his dark tower. Jean challenges D'Spayre's lies, with battle on the astral plane; while Storm tries to destroy the tower. Storm kinda has the easier job: with a "believe in yourselves" variant of one of the speeches she would give before using her powers on the cartoon, she lightnings the tower; which also causes the Man-Thing to shuffle over for a gander.
Reading D'spayre's mind, Jean realizes he's not the big boss, but rather a lackey of the "
dweller in darkness." Terrified at the thought of failing his master, D'Spayre is vulnerable to the Man-Thing's touch, which drives him away. Before returning to the swamp, Man-Thing makes psychic contact with Jean, leaving her a subconscious message...that may be needed in the next,
and final, issue! Which we'll see soon enough.
There were multiple tie-in series to the
X-Men cartoon, with most of them adapting episodes; but this one was
12 all-new 99-cent issues, with more guest-stars than usual too: Spider-Man and the Hulk both show up. The 99-cent books didn't last forever, though; and the original release of
X-Men ended September 20, 1997; so this series was on borrowed time.
Well, I guess your age probably also plays a small/minor part in not liking the X-Men animated series as much as us younger kids back then, but you do have a solid point about Kurt. Of course, bearing in mind that the show only wanted the Jim Lee-era X-Men meant that fun Kurt wasn't going to be in there since he was unfortunately w/ Excalibur at the time AND it didn't help that the main shows' writers didn't weren't really all that familiar w/ the comic despite being hired to write for it (HTF does that happen???)
ReplyDeleteI do like Kurt's episode because for whatever your opinion on it, we at least got Logan reading the bible and attempting to find some form of inner peace to his VERY troubled soul. That in and off itself was a HUGE bit of development we only got in the cartoons.
A lot of the good X-men like the other original 5 of Iceman and Warren hardly got any play either, and what he did see of Warren unfortunately was the self-hating then turned into Archangel version.
Cool story, but would've done better with more serious, less-cartoony art. Otherwise it seems solid enough.
I never got into that X-Men series either, and I was about the right age for it. I liked the Spider-Man animated series but it felt like they were trying too hard to be serious on X-Men. Plus, my first real X-Men experience was the arcade game, which was based on Pryde of the X-Men.
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