This is a gimmick I didn't think Marvel was going to go back to, but I guess over a long enough timeline everything will come back around again. From 2009,
X-Men Forever #10, "Home, Come the Heroes!" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Paul Smith, inks by Terry Austin, letters by Tom Orzechowski (who should get paid by the letter!)
So
X-Men Forever was supposedly what Chris Claremont would have continued with the mutants, if he hadn't left in 1991's
X-Men #3. I say 'supposedly,' because even at his peak popularity I can't imagine editorial letting him kill Wolverine and keep him dead. Even with his dad, Sabretooth, moving into his role--that was one of several large breaks from 616 traditional continuity. Mutants were also prone to instability and dying young (too late for Magneto and Professor X, I'd say) while Jean Grey revealed a secret (but chaste) love for Logan, and the
GCD link notes Cyclops's son Nathan wasn't sent to the future, so no Cable here!
Logan's funeral is attended by the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Nick Fury, and Captain Britain; Bruce Banner also makes an incognito appearance as a flower delivery man to pay his respects. Cyclops gives the eulogy, largely to the effect that it was tough to like Logan sometimes, but you always had to respect him. Scott then flies back to Alaska, to see his family and Nathan.
I've read a bit of this series, but never loved it; probably because I get irritated at Claremont playing favorites, especially when
Nightcrawler doesn't have someone like Dave Cockrum to advocate for him. Kurt's fate is uncertain in the
last issue, I swear every plot he had in the series was crapping on him.
Yeah I remember these. Flipped through them, and liked the Tom Grummet art, but didn't feel they were anything really ground-breaking, since 1). It wasn't in continuity & 2). Killing off Wolverine really was & really would've been an incredibly costly, dumb move back then when he was so red hot & popular as a comic book character.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird because I remember reading a long time ago about Claremont's unused plans where Wolverine gets killed off, brought back & brainwashed by the Hand, which lasts for almost two years before returning back to normal. NO fucking way Marvel would've let that happen, at least not for that long. They did let Millar do a version of that years later with Hydra instead of the Hand, but it wasn't quite the same deal or last anywhere that long.
Idk, to me it seemed like his X-Men: Forever stuff was a vanity project to show fans & Marvel that they were wrong for booting him off the book in favor of Jim Lee. I think X-Factor: Forever was a little better by comparison because it actually rapped up linger plots in a nice tidy bow rather than serve as too obvious act of righting perceived wrongs.
Don't get why he didn't include Kurt in this either. I thought he liked him.
Ugh...at some point in the series, Kurt and Rogue switched powers; and in the last couple issues, Kurt gets wrecked trying to steal Thor's powers. (Even though Rogue had done it before, right?) With him maybe dying, Mystique, Rogue, Thor, and Dani Moonstar were going to take him to Asgard to try and save him...
ReplyDelete...and they don't come back to it in the last issue, even though Rogue is seen at Havok's funeral! It's mostly wrapping up good Storm/bad Storm and the situation in Wakanda, and Nathan gets abducted by obviously Sinister. Phooey.