Welcome back to The Unspoken Decade! I hope all of you have been enjoying our MC2 summer! If you haven’t been enjoying it, then get ready to not enjoy it some more because we’re continuing the journey today with another look at A-Next! But have no fear, there are only two more entries after today’s look at A-Next! The reason I decided to split up the entries on A-Next was because I wanted to take a quick look at a new round of Avengers that showed up on the scene of A-Next very quickly – too quickly, if you ask me. Also, we needed lots of space for the original Defenders! A-Next continued one of the most beloved Avengers tropes in history, which is the shaking up of the lineup! I know many of you have seen issue after issue of Avengers with one of those great covers that usually has a giant question mark or a group of faces on the cover with the copy “Who Shall Be The Avengers?” or something similar. You know, like this:
George Perez is the man. When he draws The Avengers, I always wish there were 23987389479843789 members in the group.
A-Next did a little differently, though, and while I have been somewhat hard on Tom DeFalco here and yon, I can say I liked this twist on the trope. Instead of a dissolution of the existing A-Next squad, Mainframe, the mysterious robot that appears to be a Vision/Iron Man hybrid, just decides to bring in a bunch of new heroes. The youngsters comprising A-Next are taken aback by this, and rightfully so. Remember when you were young and you finally got some sort of brass ring, whether it was getting to be in Gifted and Talented class or you were named starting shortstop for your school baseball team or you even finally caught the eye of that young lady or fella you had been pining for since the first day of homeroom? What a fantastic feeling! Now remember when you found out others were coming into GT, that your coach wanted to start working out your arch-enemy, Tyler Kensington at SS, or your new belle or beau is all of a sudden captivated by their lab partner? That feeling was a little less delightful in the same way that having leprosy sucks a smidge. Well, that’s pretty much what happens to our pals in A-Next, although I don’t find it to be all bad, mostly due to my favorite A-Next character aside from J2.
Meet the aptly-named American Dream, the inspiration for all those “sexy Captain America” Halloween costumes some of you hate so much. I am ok with those, myself.
But what the hell is up with those sexy “Brian the Dog from Family Guy” costumes? Is that some guy’s fantasy? He wants you to be a cartoon dog? Or the lady dressed up wants to be a cartoon dog? I find this befuddling and the root of the decay of America. I kid. Mostly. But I really do like American Dream. I like the name, the idea, and the costume. The creative team does an outstanding job making her impressive. While she is obviously a derivative of Captain America, she grows into her own character that holds onto many of the same ideals and traits that we have come to know and love in Steve Rogers. Of course, she didn’t meet the original A-Next group on great terms, though, as it was a total surprise to them that Mainframe was talking to any other teenage heroes to take up the mantle of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. So you can only imagine the dismay that J2, Stinger, and the rest of the gang must have felt when they waltzed into their HQ and saw this!
The one with the French villain mustache looks smug, but I don’t know if he is actually trying to be smug so much as he just has a French villain mustache.
His name is Freebooter, and we are shortly introduced to all of them. We also learn that whatever things Mainframe has been programmed to do, one of them is not dealing with teenagers well. He’s basically dismissive of their feelings and concerns, much to the delight of every cantankerous old neighbor on nearly every sitcom ever. Why coddle the kids when you can just talk down to them in a mean robot voice?
Wow, that wasn’t awkward for anyone. Bluestreak has been on the team 7 seconds and has essentially already violated whatever sexual harassment clause The Avengers have.
Seriously though, is that the best Mainframe and Jubilee can do as far as integrating this team? This is such an awkward position for both groups of teens here, and they are handling it with all the care that a bulldozer gives a pile of debris. You’d especially think Jubilee would be better due to her history as a teen superhero. Then again, maybe when she got demoted from the X-Men to Generation X she took it really hard, thus influencing her callous nature toward the young A-next squad here. Of course, she is Mother F’n Goose in comparison to Mainframe, who epitomizes everything we fear about the imminent robot takeover of mankind.
One of our heroes is especially hit hard by this turn of events, and J2 takes off to sulk. Remember taking off to sulk when you were young? Man, I don’t know if it was just the 90’s or not, but when I was a teenager, if we gathered in groups of more than three, someone would have to get upset and go off to sulk. Sometimes, that sulker was me. These teenagers, despite their powers, are no different. Dibs on being Juggernaut, though.
“Come back inside and be sexually harassed. For once, it’s happening to the boys!”
When A-Next shines, I feel like it shines due to moments like these, where I can actually recall my own similar personal moments, where I separated myself from groups for slights both real and imagined, but also for just feeling out of place. I always treasured those moments when someone would come to check on me and make me feel like I belonged; I am sure J2 felt the same. If you want to recall those days, read A-Next, Spider-Girl, and J2. You will recall what it was to be young. In three weeks, we’ll tackle Wild Thing as part of the MC2 summer!
Next week, Angel Hayes returns with a great article on Animal Man, and the week after that, Emily Scott ventures back into Vertigo as she looks at Enigma!
One of the very best things about the 90’s was the the fact that the comics companies had so many great card sets produced. Many of my pals, and myself, found the cards exciting. While many of my pals did not wind up the lifelong superhero fan that I am, many of us still recall these cards with reverence. Here are some of my favorite cards that feature X-Force, plus a few of the “Cable Files” that were included in early issues of X-Force! See you Monday for Starman!
When it comes to the 90’s, we have lots to talk about. There’s the early 90’s with great stuff like Acts of Vengeance, Foolkiller, Armageddon 2001, and more. There’s the late 90’s with Kingdom Come, Avengers, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., and more. The 90’s are more than just one title or even one genre, (Although as I am sure you have discerned, I’m a super hero guy), but sometimes it seems like they are boiled down into one guy.
Rob Liefeld.
No matter how many times I talk to folks about 90’s comics and insist that they are fairly good, and no matter how many times I even manage to find someone open-minded enough to let me talk to them as though 90’s comics might actually be worth looking at, they almost inexorably have to savage Rob Liefeld.
And I don’t mean just say they don’t like him, but you hear everything from how idiotic he is to how he can’t draw to how he ruined comics to how he wants to destroy Denmark.
Ok, you never hear that last thing; what you do hear though, is how much he loved shoulder pads, pouches, and big guns. Hey man, he’s guilty of that, and guess what? IT’S USUALLY AWESOME!
No one has ever had larger shoulder pads juxtaposed with a smaller gun. Also, Boom Boom looks as 90’s as anyone ever has. Possibly more so.
My biggest issue with all this now is how anyone fails to see how this captured the zeitgeist of the early 90’s perfectly. Someone could take a gander at that, not know anything about superheroes, and could tell it is 90’s as hell. Liefeld has faults, but he captured the essence of this era perfectly. The 90’s were all about being bigger, bolder, and more confrontational than ever before. We were extreme, and we didn’t give a shit who knew that or cared about it.
Look at the way wrestling was in the 90’s, or the way we Alternative Music rose to the heights it did. Look at what we did at Woodstock ’99! We wanted to be in everyone’s face, breaking all the rules, and making the big dot-com dollars! We were all going to be rich, famous, and good-looking. Obviously, I got all three, which is why I make so much money writing these blogs, people everywhere can’t stop saying my name, and folks never look away from my picture. Or something different, whichever.
For better or for worse, these were the values then, and for better or for worse, X-Force was the embodiment of these values. They were hard. They were edgy. They were led by a kick-ass, take no nonsense, character who believed in delivering the dream that Xavier had conceived that mutants and humans could live in harmony right to the doorstep of those who would destroy that dream. He also carried a GIANT GUN to said doorstep. And while that doorstep is a metaphor, that giant gun is most certainly not.
That gun sort of looks like how a Swiffer will look in the future.
My first exposure to X-Force came in the form, like many of my early 90’s comics exposure, of the 1991 Marvel Universe card set. They’re just so cool. Look at them! There’s all sorts of delightful minutiae for a guy like me to devour. First appearance? Durability Stats? Did You know? Um, now I do, and I am ecstatic.
That’s sort of a stupid Did You Know. You can’t see his leg, but I can tell from this picture that his leg and arm are obviously cybernetic, and cybernetic legs count for little as far as cool goes. I mean, they don’t suck or anything, but they don’t scream cool the way a cybernetic arm does. Although nothing beats a cybernetic eye with crosshairs on it. I am a freaking mark for those. HOW COULD THEY MISS?
But I digress, I wanted to show you the card that introduced me to X-Force…I reckon I can now!
Rather than their headquarters being unknown, I like to think of them as sharing a headquarters with The Riddler.
I’m sort of a sucker for a few things, some of which y’all are already aware of, like cyborgs. That alone would have had me enthralled with X-Force, but it didn’t stop there. We also get a giant Native American, and while Warpath seems rather racist now, I loved him then, as he tied into my love of the Atlanta Braves. (I know, you’re thinking, what about the Kansas City Royals, Dean? Relax, they’re still number one. The Braves are my second favorite team.) Throw in a guy with cool pilot goggles and a lady with a Spuds Mackenzie eye named Domino and I was instantly spellbound. I didn’t even need to know anything else about the team, but the fact that they were once the New Mutants rang a bell for me.
I had a weird New Mutants comic when I was very young. I got it when I was five, and I didn’t really comprehend it. I remember Warlock being in it, and it being over my head, but I mostly remembered those guys looking like this:
Cannonball is cool because his legs disappear into back blast when he flies, but why is there magic marker all around Karma’s head?
Still, when I saw the connection between The New Mutants and X-Force, comic books became another thing I could know more than others about, and since trying to make others feel stupid was how I dealt with my insecurity at that time, this was truly a treasure trove of defense for me!
X-Force spent their first few issues kicking ass and looking cool, and if you tell me anything more important to a 13-year-old-boy than kicking ass and looking cool, I will tell you that we don’t discuss such things here and you are crude for having such a thought.
I would also show you this splash page from X-Force #1.
Between Feral, Wolfsbane, and Wolverine, all the X-teams at this time had a wolf person. Was that mandated, or were wolf folks really that cool?
Where is Cable jumping from in that picture? He seems like he is hanging from an invisible trapeze, and let’s be honest, if he was, that would just make him even more hardcore. Also with all of the other stuff we see Cable do, being in possession of an invisible trapeze would be completely unsurprising.
The issue culminates around X-Force raiding the headquarters of the greatly-named Mutant Liberation Front. That name is amazing. There should be more “front” teams in comics. I mean, I guess they’d all have to be bad guys since terrorist groups seem to have a TM on using Front in their team name.
The MLF ruled though, and they looked so distinctive. I liked Reaper with his scythe, Tempo in her quasi Iron Man get up, and Forearm with his…four arms. Also, there were like a million guys in the MLF, from their Cable-clone leader Stryfe (hey sorry if I spoiled that for you!) to the enigmatic Zero. There were all the guys I have mentioned plus Zero, Kamikaze, Wildside, Sumo, Dragoness, Strobe, Tumbelina, and more. The idea of the numerous legions vs. the elite but small task force is an intriguing one in all sorts of fiction, but it was made familiar to us all in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
TMNT had swords on their cartoons too, but as awesome as it might have been and as much as we wanted to see it, Leonardo never did anything like this to Baxter Stockman or Slash, the Evil Ninja Turtle.
Shatterstar is able to easily slice people up because his sword has two blades. DOUBLE CUTTING ACTION!
Later, it would sort of become a thing that Reaper had body parts cut off. I think he wound up with a cybernetic hand and leg. After that, he ended up in the Ultraverse. That’s a different conversation for a different article, though. For now, just understand that Reaper was in the MLF, which was awesome, and therefore, by extension, Reaper is awesome.
I like Forearm a great deal, too, but I know his name is silly. You don’t have to chastise me.
What I don’t like about X-Force is the entire “should I kill or not” trope that dominated superheroes also comes up quite often, It’s extra annoying here because Cable is all “I can kill, but you can’t” to the rest of X-Force. It reminds me too much of my own issues with authorities.
Of course, Cable is super awesome, so even when he is being a tight-ass, he is still a cyborg being a tight-ass. Perhaps I would have tolerated authority better if the authorities had glowing eyes and metal arms.
Personally, I think it’s racism against Wolf Folks that made Cable decide it wasn’t ok for Feral to kill, but it was perfectly all right if he did.
I have complained about this before, and I am sure I will complain about it again, but it is just so stupid. Kill or don’t, but quit the damn whining about it. It’s as if many writers decided faux pathos and trite dialogue somehow substitute for genuine character development. I’m not against tension or indecision in characters, but this gets old fast. I’ve seen it in Darkhawk, and now I have seen it here. Something tells me I am going to see it a lot more in this blog, whether I like it or not.
What I do like though, is Rob Liefeld’s Juggernaut. Nothing can stop the Juggernaut, so nothing should look more powerful than he does, and few have drawn him with the inherent power and danger that Liefeld imbued him with.
Again, I have to ask, where is Shatterstar jumping from? Did Cable lend him his invisible trapeze?
My favorite Juggernaut pic though, is this one. In fact, it may be my favorite Juggernaut image of all time, which is saying something, because Juggernaut is my favorite super-villain. Juggernaut looks angrier than a kid who had his pie stolen. Not as sad though.
Is balloon stuffer a euphemism for a heroin dealer? Also, note how Juggernaut is bleeding from his eyes, but he can still see.
X-Force is one of those titles that you love or hate. I have been on both sides of the fence on it, and I like the view from both yards. I can see why both sides come down on the side they come down on, and to be honest, I came into this expecting to detest it, or at least be meaner and snarkier about it. Instead, I found myself enthralled by the magnitude of Liefeld’s art. I found myself smiling as I recalled my days as a teenager who loved the excesses of this comic and just wanted to drink up the entire medium. I smiled when I recalled how I became the comics hipster we all are at some point, denigrating Liefeld’s work as though it was inherently awful. Now, I’m a man who appreciates that somehow, the dichotomy of those views make me work, and by bridging them together, I can appreciate the work for what it is while still recognizing its flaws.
There’s lots of X-Force left, and much of it doesn’t have Liefeld at all, but some of my favorite moments of the book (aside from the X-Statix stuff, which is crazy good), come from the period just after Liefeld leaves and forms Image; we will get to those next time I tackle X-Force, which will be quite sooner than later! I had much more fun than I thought I would here; I miss X-Force tons, and I never would have believed it had I not gone back and devoured these Liefeld classics. That’s right, I said classics. No matter how you feel about him now, Liefeld changed the game. X-Force changed the game. No matter whether the change was for better or for worse in your opinion, the paradigm shift that came about can be directly attributed to Liefeld. His early 90’s work had an energy and style that translated into what the era wanted at the time, and despite my days as a hipster, I find myself wanting more of his work now. I don’t think I will be as kind to Youngblood, but X-Force is truly amazing in its own way, despite the flaws. Give it a once-over and see if you don’t wind up agreeing with me, much to your shock and dismay over betraying the silly notion that you have held for years that “Liefeld ruined comics.” If your self-revelation doesn’t cause you to die of a heartattack, then pick up the next issue of X-Force and enjoy the grandeur.
Be back here in two days for Bane and Doomsday in the Super-Blog Team-Up!
