More X-Baseball, and probably not even all of it.

Before we get going on the next one, the ever-sharp Sea of Green pointed out to me another game of X-Men baseball, from Uncanny X-Men #201. Which I should've remembered: it's on my desk at work! It was reprinted for the Toy Biz Marvel Legends Cyclops figure, which is kinda mean, since in said issue Storm whups him good and Cyke is shamed off the team. Still, more baseball! Panel from "Duel" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Rick Leonardi, inks by Whilce Portacio; and I still miss getting action figures with reprinted comics. (If I were a He-Man fan paying $30 a pop for the new figures, I would raise bloody hell until I got a comic out of the deal, but that may just be me.)

But, here's another fun-filled, heavy-hitting, bases-loaded...I'm out of baseball references. Steroid-juiced? Look, here's some panels from X-Men Evolution #7, "Beast of Burden" Written by Devin Grayson, art and colors by Udon with Long Vo, Charles Park, and Saka of Studio XD. That's a lot of art crew, but they do a helluva job keeping the comic looking like the cartoon, which is more than can be said for just about every other Marvel adaptation of their own shows. This issue fits in right after the Beast joins the school, and the young X-Men play a (mostly) friendly game with the younger New Mutants.

The game starts sans powers, but after Scott Summers joins in, the game goes inside to the Danger Room. It's not stated outright, but apparently indoors powers are fair game, which would make most hits easy pickings for fliers like Cannonball. In fact, Jubilee appears to be pitching while flashing fireworks at the batter. The X-Men would appear to be outgunned, but manage to pull out a last minute win, because the name of the book isn't New Mutants Evolution.

Once again, I still don't see how DC can have so much more success with their adaptations, and Marvel can't even seem to keep a pretty decent one like this going.
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"America's Pasttime."

All together now: Click to enlarge!



Three years down, and according to my blogger dashboard, this is like my 1001st post. Um, no: there's a good fistful of drafts and posts that saved multiple times, so not quite. Getting there, though.

Personally, this last year was very much not the best year ever. But, I am glad I have the time and comics and toys to do this blog--a lot of the blogs on my sidebar aren't as lucky, and I miss them. And I'm very grateful to everyone who has stopped by, linked, left a comment, or followed this nonsense. Thanks again.

OK, some notes! The baseball diamond is about three dollars worth of construction paper and foam, with bases made from a cut-up backing board...that I cut off in most of the photos. I'm not a realistic set builder, no: I just try to vaguely approximate where I'm setting the strip, like stage theatre. Nightcrawler's glove is leftover foam. The bat is from a Playmates Simpsons figure, but I'm not positive who. Nelson, maybe. Of course, Nelson can hold a bat, which is more than can be said for Booster Gold and Superman, who both have two clenched fists. The bat was a bit too big for Wonder Woman to grip, but at least she had open hands. (You could definitely get a more realistic bat from a McFarlane sports figure, but I didn't find one marked down that had a bat...) The baseball is Captain Sisko's, from Art Asylum/Diamond Select's Star Trek: Deep Space 9 line: they gave a lot of accessories with those. The ball's actually mounted on a little black stand, but I didn't want to risk shredding the ball removing it.

Now, we ran a lot of superhero baseball panels earlier this week, and it may have occurred to you as well just what a phenomenally terrible idea playing baseball with super-powered hitters like Colossus or Superman would be. That panel with Wonder Man pitching against Thor? WM throws so hard, the ball's almost on fire, which means it's probably faster than the human eye can see, and Hank Pym's catching those? Sure, he's got a big glove, but if Thor tips one back Pym's a dead man.

In the X-Men Evolutions game, Sunspot powers up and knocks out a big one, and Nightcrawler teleports up for the catch. Which is so hard, it throws him back into the Danger Room windows, and Jean has to telekinetically catch Kurt. Of course, in a training situation like this, the danger of superpowered line drives can be written off to being aware of potential hazards, like a live-fire drill. Maybe. At any rate, if you're headed to a game this Memorial Day, have fun, and try not to dwell on Superman's batting average...

With this and the holiday, we're going to be out until Wednesday, but we'll have a new strip then! Hope to see you there...figuratively.
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I don't have the time to watch a whole game, but they so rarely finish anyway...

While titles like DC Comics Strange Sports Stories are no more, there still seems to be a fair amount of superheroes playing baseball. Or, at least there was. Really don't see the Dark Avengers playing a game on a sunny afternoon. Can't even picture that lot out in the daytime, honestly.

But maybe it's time for superhero teams to play ball again. To take a day off from Civil Wars and Secret Invasions and Battles for Cowls and remember that it's not all bad. There's still hot dogs and cold beer and sunny afternoons and friends. Friendly competition, and competition making friends. Think about it, won't you?

...or don't: I broke my thumb playing ball as a kid--well, that's not strictly accurate: I was hit by a wild pitch during practice, and that was the end of my ball-playing days. To be fair, I was pretty bad, but in theory could've got better that year...probably not, but still.

Anyway, new strip on Sunday that possibly maybe has something to do with this. And it's a special occasion for here, so I'd better get going on it. Possibly more baseball tomorrow: another X-Men game, but not one most of you will remember!

Panel one from X-Men Annual #7, "Scavenger Hunt" Plot and script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Michael Golden, inks for that page Michael Golden.

Panel two from West Coast Avengers Annual #2, "Death and Texas!" Story by Steve Englehart (with "creative kibitzing from Mark Gruenwald, editor and Tom Defalco, scripter of the East Coast Annual") and art by Al Milgrom. The conclusion in Avengers Annual #16 is better, and I had forgotten Defalco wrote that.

Page three from JLA #76, "Picking Up the Pieces" Written by Joe Kelly, pencils by Lewis La Rosa, inks by Al Milgrom. A quiet issue after the Obsidian Age storyline, with several team members leaving the book: Plastic Man, J'onn J'onzz, Aquaman, and Kyle Rayner. J'onn and Plas would be back before the end of Kelly's run.

Page four from Uncanny X-Men #379, "What Dreams May Come..." Story by Alan Davis, pencils by Tom Raney, inks by Scott Hanna; and we'll be coming back to this issue later, too. Read more!

Despite literally being on home plate, Deadpool's home run is strictly metaphorical...

Leave it to Deadpool to bring us a less...conventional use of the baseball diamond: first, sparring with Warpath of X-Force on the Field of Dreams set in Iowa!


Then, scoring with his dream date, Siryn!

Yep, looks like everything's coming up Deadpool, and everything is right with the world--wait, what's going on here--

Why would Siryn have an image inducer--

--oh, dear God! Ick. Kinda defiled the cornfield, too. And Pool either didn't tuck his mask in, or decided he wanted to try the Cobra Commander look.

Typhoid Mary was an Ann Nocenti creation, and as we may have mentioned before, wrecked Daredevil up; as she organized a multi-villain beating while driving Karen away from Matt. (Again.) DD managed to get her into an asylum once, but her multiple personalities put ads in the paper: one to spring her, the other to kill her. ("It's a daily double!" proclaims Deadpool's buddy Weasel, in issue #4. That was the first issue of Deadpool I read and I've been there most of the way since.) We won't mention her third personality, Bloody Mary...seriously.

After kicking the legs out of Pool's attempts to be a hero, Typhoid strolls out of the book, and I'm not sure what her next appearance was. She recently reappeared in the Marvel Universe, but I don't want to say where since it was a surprise reveal. (Here's a hint: not Thunderbolts.) While she hasn't been in as many comics as that, Mary still has a pretty good win-loss record, and I still have her old Toy Biz Vault action figure. With little straitjacket!

A funny story: when I was in high school, my Grandma rented Field of Dreams, and was really excited to watch it, since she said a friend told her it was based on a true story. About halfway through, when the dead baseball players start coming out of the cornfield, my sister and I glance at each other like what the...? A little later, Grandma says "Wait, that's not right..." She was a little concerned about her friend after that.

Panels from Deadpool #12-13, "Drowning Man, parts 1 and 2" 'A Kelly/Woods/Massengill/Wong/Tinsley/Comicraft/Idelson/Harras Production.' Issue #11 is the slaphappy fun Spider-Man mashup, but these issues show glimpses of Pool's darker side and the goal of redemption slipping away from him. But with a very cartoony style, because that really helps make Deadpool what he is. I mean, if, say, Bill Sienkiewicz drew him...OK, that would be pretty sweet. But it might over-emphasize the violent aspects of the character. Not that the violence isn't always there, but the comedy might not work as well. And then you have panels like this...

Try to imagine Greg Land or Jim Balent drawing that one. I think you'd feel a little like, well, this:

Uh-huh. Weird to remember that Deadpool was based in San Francisco years before the X-Men headed west; although I guess Daredevil did that first anyway.
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80-Page Thursdays: X-Men Universe #8!

Here's an 80-Pager I've already covered, as the actual issues, but you can get it in one 80-page package: X-Men Universe #8, featuring the High Evolutionary!

Right up front: I didn't like Chris Claremont's return to the X-books. I thought Alan Davis had been doing a decent job, and the books were enjoyable reads, if not reinventing the wheel. And, this one has elements predating House of M and Secret Invasion!

Uncanny X-Men #379, "What Dreams May Come..." Story by Alan Davis, pencils by Tom Raney, inks by Scott Hanna. This issue opens with the aftermath of the Apocalypse: the Twelve storyline, where Cyclops sacrificed himself to defeat the Big A. Mulling over a "Shi'ar Holempathic Matrix Crystal" of Cyke, Professor X leaves earth with the Skrull mutants.

OK, even if the X-Men had a bunch of blank holempathic matrix crystals, and a holempathic surround recording studio; when would Cyclops have made that thing? Do all the X-Men make them, in case of their untimely demise? Or is that a special, favorite student thing? I still don't know how the Professor returned from space this time (he previously spent yeeeeears in space starting in UXM #200) or if the mutant Skrulls were ever brought up again, even in Secret Invasion where it would've made sense.


As she complains about Professor X abandoning them, and having her own hopes and dreams, Kitty says she's barely sixteen. Wha--? Really? Kitty first appeared in UXM #129 as a thirteen-year-old (in 1980), so the last two-hundred and fifty-one issues worth of Uncanny took place in a three year period? That would also include a hundred and twenty five or so issues of Excalibur, and her relationship with Peter Wisdom, which would be just wrong then...

At any rate, having lost two of the team's strongest leaders, it's time for Storm...to space out during a game of baseball. Logan saves her from a baseball to the noggin, and Storm admits she's already worrying about the next crisis; that the X-Men are "a fire brigade" and there's always another fire.

Meanwhile, tons of other mutants are going about their business: in Genosha, Polaris is shoring up Magneto's failing powers, in an attempt to bring peace to the region. Mystique is sneaking into the NSA to try to see how several of her cover identities have been blown. Phoenix sits on a mountaintop, and has a brief chat with X-Man. (The young version of Cable from the Age of Apocalypse, and that's as much as I'm going to get into that, although I know I liked the first issues of that book...) The current Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a total sausage-fest with Blob, Toad, the somehow not-dead Mimic, and Post; plans a heist. And the Beast gets Iceman to give him a ride to Genosha to research the Legacy Virus.

(All the alt-text bits disappeared--I don't know why they don't seem to work anymore, at least that I can see.)

The X-Men themselves are having a picnic, when the story starts moving: a hologram of the High Evolutionary appears, and promptly denounces mutants as a danger to the genetic potential of the world and its people. The High Evolutionary is probably one of the nicer, more well-meaning mad scientists in comics, but has rarely accomplished anything helpful. I think I've lost more comics than I have with him: those Evolutionary War annuals, a couple batches of Thor, Ka-Zar of all places. After a brief debate, what gives you the right, blah blah blah; H.E. declares he has an energy field that will neutralize their mutant genomes, and make them human. And just like that, every mutant on the planet is shut down.

The ones we care about--Jean, X-Man, Cannonball--are shown falling, but not too far. Someone off panel, still debating with the Evolutionary, points out the Avengers have several mutant members and won't take this lying down...which they totally do, since this storyline didn't cross over with even the other X-books, to say nothing of the larger Marvel U. (This, and Kurt Busiek's big Kang story in Avengers, are the best examples of the fragmented nature of Marvel at the time...there wasn't even a handwave explanation as to why no one else noticed.)

("Watch the hands, bub!")

Magneto falls, in a weird position with Polaris, and realizes old scores are going to be coming for him. Mystique turns blue, then powerless, mid-heist and is captured. The Brotherhood loses their powers, to varying effects:

(So...the Toad's power was being an uggo?)

Hey, isn't the Mimic a mutate, not strictly a mutant? Well, maybe he lost powers absorbed from mutants.

(That would have to be more traumatic than Storm losing her powers, but you wouldn't know it to listen to her...)

Beast and Iceman are stuck on Genosha, in their trunks, since that's all they wore as costumes. Mutants like Angel and Nightcrawler transform into ordinary humans--do not ask how that would work. The High Evolutionary feels bad for them, but points out all that silly human vs. mutant stuff is at least over.

So, the High Evolutionary just used an energy wave to turn every mutant on earth into normal humans. What's he going to do for a follow-up? Um, how about mope about whether he had the right to do that? H.E. seems uncertain, but his old teacher Dr. Essex reassures that this is the best course of action. Although Essex looks like an Einstein-type, it's not clear why H.E. doesn't realize Essex should be really old, as in dead; unless he just figures all geneticists don't age.

(Iceman's gun goes 'poom,' I gather.)

Stuck in Genosha, Beast and Iceman have managed to find some action-heroey ensembles and guns, and are trying to protect some of the former mutates from the now-superior human forces. (The battle was pretty even when the mutates had powers and the humans had battlesuits and whatnot.) They are joined by gun-toting Magneto and his crew; who point out that the humans don't care how or why the mutates changed, they're just going to press the advantage and exterminate them.


(No one had the heart to tell Kurt to sew up his...tail-hole.)

Meanwhile, the Xavier Institute...is closed until further notice. Nightcrawler has stayed behind to maintain the school, but it's more because he misses being Nightcrawler. As plain Kurt, he's not as agile, and had to relearn how to walk in a straight line without a tail, and has icky extra fingers. I thought his acrobatic ability was a learned skill, though, and not as much a power. Ex-Colossus Peter encourages Kurt to get out of the house and travel, since weeks have seemingly passed between the start of the issue and page eight. Kitty's back in school, and is enjoying her classes but also realizing most girls her age are "irritating. And that's the polite way of putting it." She reads a postcard from Warren and Betsy--the former Archangel and Psylocke--on vacation in St. Moritz, since Warren could never go to beaches before as he couldn't have his wings out. Peter doesn't think the beach is a fair trade for flying.

(Girls, a friendly tip: if you're seeing a guy that's "spiritual," he's not.)



Storm and Marrow are volunteering at a children's park-ground in upstate New York. While Marrow is enjoying the hell out of not having extra bones sticking out of her and the dating opportunities that brings; Storm is struggling with this second loss of her powers. Rogue is able to touch people (and loss of her powers doesn't seem to have affected her legs, which are absurdly long...Why bother taking the subway? Two steps with those legs, and she's there!) but has to cope with the lack of personal space in the city. She's working on Mystique's case, as her foster mom faces an assload of charges while freaking out over being stuck with her old face.

Meanwhile, setting up Chris Claremont's run, the hidden community of the Neo is wrecked up when they lose their powers. But they're the suckiest of Marvel's several dozen hidden races, and we shall waste no more time with them. Somewhere else, not sure where; a street gang attacks Jubilee, then gets the beatdown by Wolverine. Who is not taking powerlessness well: Logan just got his adamantium back, the week before losing his healing factor, which he kinda needed to prevent adamantium poisoning...OK, Wolvie's not a doctor. He's probably dying of something else, like not being able to make blood cells, or rejection, or from taking stab wounds he thought he could heal from.

The former Mirage, Danielle Moonstar, gets a psychic vision from Cable, who may now be a techno-organic Alien egg at this point. She wonders if their powers aren't completely gone after all; and Genosha seems to back that up. Beast realizes some of the mutates have "stalled in mid-transformation" and their mutations are mutating, and that the rest of the planet will soon follow suit.

In space, the High Evolutionary is about to come to the same conclusion, when he's zapped and frozen by his teacher...revealed as Mr. Sinister! Duhn-duhn-duh! Concluded next issue, in Uncanny X-Men #380, "Heaven's Shadow"!

All scans this issue from X-Men #99, "Oh, the Humanity!" Plot by Alan Davis, pencils by Brett Booth, script by Terry Kavanagh, inks by Sal Regla. Like we said, Davis was on his way out, and these issues seem much wordier than previous ones: either Kavanagh was emulating a Claremont style to prep for his return, or he thought the letterer was getting lazy and needed to step up.


(Sinister had a goatee the previous chapter, now he looks too Tim Curry-like.)

So, the High Evolutionary turned all the mutants on earth into normal humans, but the procedure was going to cause wild mutation in all life on earth, thanks to the involvement of Mr. Sinister. The powerless X-Men have less than a week to stop him. (Since they figure the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Power Pack, etc. will have their own problems and don't need to be bothered with every little thing.)

Fortunately, the X-Men have big piles of stolen alien crap from the Skrulls, the Shi'ar, etc. (Which begs the question, every time the Sentinels attack, why don't the X-Men whip out some of the ray guns and whatnot?) While they get ready, Mr. Sinister makes his own preparations: he wants to use the High Evolutionary's tech to make an army of New Men, evolved animals. H.E. tells M.S. to suck it, but Sinister just says he'll figure it out. How hard could it be?


(I know you're falling apart, Wolvie, but you could change into a uniform that isn't full of blood...)

Rogue calls the jailed Mystique, who gets steamed that her foster daughter is siding with the X-Men over her. As the team works on a ship, most are anxious to get their powers back, when Wolverine arrives. Or most of him, anyway. Still dying of "adamantium poisoning," Logan had been willing to take one for the team if it meant other mutants like Marrow would be happy, but he's also ready to die fighting.


("Oh, I'm sorry, Kitty: who here has multiple doctorates? Hmm?")

The ex-X-Men launch into space, and note that mutants apparently cope better with G-force nausea than normos do. Since the High Evolutionary is ostensibly peaceful, his satellite didn't have the weaponry to shoot them down, and Sinister is looking forward to comparing their powerless performance to previous records.

("Ha! What did the five fingers say to the face! I finally get that one!")

His New Men are supposedly mutated normal animals, but seem to include Gloop (or Gleep) from the Herculoids, Tweak from the classic Judge Dredd story "the Cursed Earth," and a snake-lizard guy in bright yellow pants and a big-S belt buckle. As everyone fights, Storm, Wolverine, and Kitty break away to try and find the station's power core; but Wolvie gets Sinister's scent--wait, did that still work?--and they decide to try to take him and the station's controls.

("That's a puppy with a carpet remnant on it's back!")

Sinister is pretty well prepared, though: he's got a Killer Shrew for Wolvie! (Or maybe a giant rat, but it's more fun to figure Sinister is an MST3K fan.) Wolvie fights his way to Sinister, who tries to burn him down with his nondescript ray-hands. Kitty realizes those blasts should've killed Wolvie outright, and deduces that nausea they all felt earlier wasn't g-forces, it was their powers starting back up. It dawns on Sinister that his powers still work there, maybe everyone else's would too...even scorched bald, Wolverine still has a prodigious amount of arm hair, and slices up an explody console.

The X-Men regroup to watch Logan heal slowly up, and the freed High Evolutionary says he's regressed all the New Men back into animals, Mr. Sinister just escaped in the X-Men's ship, and Wolverine didn't destroy the anti-mutation satellites: Wolvie just broke the Evolutionary out, and he destroyed his misused life's work. Back on earth, old mutants repower up: awkward for some like Jean Grey or the Blob, but awesome for others like Magneto or the now-incredibly pissed Mystique. And in space, the X-Men themselves return to normal, presumably as they wait to get a ride home.

(If this had been a big crossover thing, Blob would've gotten a three-issue mini out of that...)

It doesn't seem like the X-Men gave some of their depowered friends a heads-up: the sudden return of her powers could've very easily killed Jean, and it's likely Warren was in a public place when his powers came back. I like to think the Toad turned back into the Toad, in a scene reminiscent of the end of They Live...

("My finger fell off, help me find it for my scrapbook!")

Marrow sprouts horns from her forehead pretty quickly, and Nightcrawler looks like he's going to molt off his extra fingers, which is kind of gross. Did his tail just fall off when he lost his powers? This happens every once in a while at Marvel, like when Spidey grows or loses extra arms, and it's never quite clear.

Not a bad little yarn: entertaining, and relatively quick, even with a cast of dozens. Nowadays, a plot like this would be spun out into every book Marvel could, and then some miniseries tie-ins to boot; and while admittedly that might add some depth, or get to some characters and plots that got shortchanged (the Moonstar/Cable one is barely an afterthought) there is something to be said for the cheap, bare-bones and done story. If you can find it, all three issues were reprinted in X-Men Universe #8.
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Today we hit Spider-Man Team-Up #3, featuring the Fantastic Four, "the wizards fantastic" Written by Dan Jurgens, art by Bob McLeod. Hoo boy, where to start? This was during the stretch when Ben Reilly was Spider-Man: although he isn't named as such in this story, you can tell by the costume, the webshooters on the outside, etc. The Fantastic Four had just recently returned to its 'classic' lineup, ditching Ant-Man with the return of the thought-dead Reed Richards; which puts this story about twenty minutes before Onslaught and Heroes Reborn. Reed had been stuck somewhere primitive for a year or two's worth of issues, and came back with a beard and Rogue's haircut.

Yeah, this wasn't a highwater mark for mighty Marvel. There's an ad on the back cover for Spider-Man cereal, which at that point I was buying more regularly than his comics. (Plus, I got a Spidey cereal bowl from it...even though I was in college at the time.)

Since it's not mentioned that this story's Spider-Man wasn't the original (and honestly, would you mention it if you didn't have to?), it's easy to miss the incongruity of Spidey acting like the FF are old friends, practically family; yet in continuity he hadn't seen them in several years. You could argue Reilly is just throwing himself into the role of Spider-Man, so no one suspects it's not the same guy; or perhaps Peter coached him or put him up to it. ('Oh, one more thing: every year, I use my webbing to clog every toilet in the Daily Bugle building.' 'Why?' 'Oh, tradition. Get to it!')

That said, the comedy value of this would skyrocket if Johnny either intentionally or unknowingly reversed that, dropping uncomfortable asides to Reilly based on years of friendship they haven't shared. ('You remembered our anniversary! I didn't think you cared!')

The story opens with Spidey in stealth mode, breaking into Four Freedoms Plaza to play a birthday prank on Johnny Storm. Spidey does a fair amount of property damage and malicious mischief getting into what probably is the most secure facility in the Marvel U, but I think Reed's defense system is programmed to recognize Spidey as a friend and not electronically disembowel him. (I think the Trapster got in once disguised as Spider-Man, so maybe not a great idea.) Spidey leaves the Torch a 'birthday bomb,' because isn't that what friends do? Blow up asbestos solution in their faces while they're sleeping? ('Ha-ha, you can't flame on, and you've got lung cancer!')

After the bomb blows, Spidey is caught by the Thing, and the rest of the Four; but not because he set off the alarm: an extradimensional portal has opened up in Johnny's room. No reason, just because. Also, Johnny has baseball and car posters all over his room, meaning:

A. He's a huge fan of baseball and racing.

B. He's really, really juvenile.

C. Actually, Johnny only puts those up so he doesn't seem like a huge perv: usually, he has more porn than your average mid-Western university.

Back to the portal, which everyone treats as seriously as you would a loose carpet tack, until a tentacle reaches out and pulls in the Thing. Johnny can't flame on, and Sue's force-field powers are broken (no idea why); so Reed stretches to fish Ben out. Instead of Ben, he pulls out a midget wizard. Yeah.

The wizard had opened the portal, because through his mystic viewing portal, he had seen the awe-inspiring sight of attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, C-beams glitterring in the dark near the Tannhauser gate...no, that's Blade Runner. The wizard was watching Johnny's video game console. Circa 1996, that probably would've been the Playstation, unless Reed built Johnny his own console system...he could, but probably wouldn't. (Oddly, for a 1996 comic, all the ads are for kid's products and candy, and no video games except Earthworm Jim VHS tapes mentioning his game. Still, it's a sharp reminder that kids used to read these, isn't it?)

The four piece together what happened, then Sue points out Ben's still missing. Even though he's fallen for about fifteen minutes, things aren't going that badly for him.

When I started on this issue, I was just going to post this page. Between the harem girls and the "Crom's Beard!" epithet, there's a nice old-school Conan feel for just a second. It doesn't last, though, and the Thing's eyes look like ping-pong balls in a lot of panels.


After the locals trip all over themselves attacking and fleeing him, the Thing switches over to his Ben Grimm form. Note I didn't say 'regular,' it's weird for me to see him changing back and forth. I can think of like three different occasions when he's been able to switch, and it always ends with him stuck/back to normal as the Thing full-time again. Ben steals a robe and wanders off to see what's what.

Back in Johnny's room, the wizard is getting an insane amount of enjoyment from a Playstation demo screen; and Reed, Sue, and Spidey are going to lower themselves through the portal to find Ben. Spidey explains his birthday prank:

Spidey acts like a twelve-year old this whole issue, I swear.

Ben decides the FF will come looking for him, so he decides to go back to the tower so he can get a good view for them. The inhabitants of the tower, perhaps understandably, don't take kindly to this; and it escalates into a brawl with dragon-riders by the time Spidey and company get there. Sue clonks the bad wizard in the back of the head with, um, her fist, I guess; but the wizard had already shot a very, very slow magic bolt back at the portal.

To get the good wizard off his ass, Spidey webs Johnny's Playstation (the portal is inexplicably closer now then when Ben fell through, but it's still at least a fifty-yard web shot) and pulls it through. The good wizard follows it, and Spidey makes him banish the dragon-riders and close the portal in exchange for the game. As the rest of the Fantastic Four gets back, Johnny considers leaving Spidey trapped in the wizard's world, but pulls him through the closing portal.

For his punishment, Spidey is forced to serve the FF Johnny's birthday dinner. The wizard gets his system, but without electricity, a TV, AV cables, and Doritos it's not doing him any good. Thus ends a minor footnote in the history of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. Come to think of it, Spider-Man Team-Up pretty much ended up the same way. I'm curious to see if the updated Brave and the Bold from DC can bring back the team-up book, or if that's as hopeless in today's market as quarterly books--again, SMTU. A team-up book that at least pretended to be dramatic might be a start, though... Read more!

I've probably watched a month of baseball this week; I don't remember this, but...

From 1970, DC Special #9, reprinting "Challenge of the Headless Baseball Team!" from 1962's Brave and the Bold #45, written by Gardner Fox, pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Joe Giella.

No secret, but I've been out of office all this week. We'll be back to closer to our usual nonsense next week, so have a good weekend!

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Evolution in comics, how old is Kitty Pryde, and what does 'statutory' mean?

Right up front: I didn't like Chris Claremont's return to the X-books. I thought Alan Davis had been doing a decent job, and the books were enjoyable reads, if not reinventing the wheel. And, this one has elements predating House of M and Secret Invasion!

Uncanny X-Men #379, "What Dreams May Come..." Story by Alan Davis, pencils by Tom Raney, inks by Scott Hanna. This issue opens with the aftermath of the Apocalypse: the Twelve storyline, where Cyclops sacrificed himself to defeat the Big A. Mulling over a "Shi'ar Holempathic Matrix Crystal" of Cyke, Professor X leaves earth with the Skrull mutants.

OK, even if the X-Men had a bunch of blank holempathic matrix crystals, and a holempathic surround recording studio; when would Cyclops have made that thing? Do all the X-Men make them, in case of their untimely demise? Or is that a special, favorite student thing? I still don't know how the Professor returned from space this time (he previously spent yeeeeears in space starting in UXM #200) or if the mutant Skrulls were ever brought up again, even in Secret Invasion where it would've made sense.

Way more after the bump!


As she complains about Professor X abandoning them, and having her own hopes and dreams, Kitty says she's barely sixteen. Wha--? Really? Kitty first appeared in UXM #129 as a thirteen-year-old (in 1980), so the last two-hundred and fifty-one issues worth of Uncanny took place in a three year period? That would also include a hundred and twenty five or so issues of Excalibur, and her relationship with Peter Wisdom, which would be just wrong then...

At any rate, having lost two of the team's strongest leaders, it's time for Storm...to space out during a game of baseball. Logan saves her from a baseball to the noggin, and Storm admits she's already worrying about the next crisis; that the X-Men are "a fire brigade" and there's always another fire.

Meanwhile, tons of other mutants are going about their business: in Genosha, Polaris is shoring up Magneto's failing powers, in an attempt to bring peace to the region. Mystique is sneaking into the NSA to try to see how several of her cover identities have been blown. Phoenix sits on a mountaintop, and has a brief chat with X-Man. (The young version of Cable from the Age of Apocalypse, and that's as much as I'm going to get into that, although I know I liked the first issues of that book...) The current Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a total sausage-fest with Blob, Toad, the somehow not-dead Mimic, and Post; plans a heist. And the Beast gets Iceman to give him a ride to Genosha to research the Legacy Virus.

The X-Men themselves are having a picnic, when the story starts moving: a hologram of the High Evolutionary appears, and promptly denounces mutants as a danger to the genetic potential of the world and its people. The High Evolutionary is probably one of the nicer, more well-meaning mad scientists in comics, but has rarely accomplished anything helpful. I think I've lost more comics than I have with him: those Evolutionary War annuals, a couple batches of Thor, Ka-Zar of all places. After a brief debate, what gives you the right, blah blah blah; H.E. declares he has an energy field that will neutralize their mutant genomes, and make them human. And just like that, every mutant on the planet is shut down.

The ones we care about--Jean, X-Man, Cannonball--are shown falling, but not too far. Someone off panel, still debating with the Evolutionary, points out the Avengers have several mutant members and won't take this lying down...which they totally do, since this storyline didn't cross over with even the other X-books, to say nothing of the larger Marvel U. (This, and Kurt Busiek's big Kang story in Avengers, are the best examples of the fragmented nature of Marvel at the time...there wasn't even a handwave explanation as to why no one else noticed.)

Magneto falls, in a weird position with Polaris, and realizes old scores are going to be coming for him. Mystique turns blue, then powerless, mid-heist and is captured. The Brotherhood loses their powers, to varying effects:

Hey, isn't the Mimic a mutate, not strictly a mutant? Well, maybe he lost powers absorbed from mutants.

Beast and Iceman are stuck on Genosha, in their trunks, since that's all they wore as costumes. Mutants like Angel and Nightcrawler transform into ordinary humans--do not ask how that would work. The High Evolutionary feels bad for them, but points out all that silly human vs. mutant stuff is at least over.

Next week, next chapter: X-Men #99, "Oh, the Humanity!"

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