For The Children

“For the Children”
Powers of X #5 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

It’s a bit strange to slow narrative momentum to a crawl in the final third of a 12-issue story, but here we are with a 10th issue that feels like an epilogue following the double climaxes in the middle of the story and the previous issue’s triumphs and revelations. “For the Children” is a series of four conversations that mostly fill in details and set up plot to come, mostly with regards to establishing the new purpose of the Hellfire Club and setting up the premise of Gerry Duggan’s Marauders spin-off. There’s some light intrigue in terms of teasing out the membership of the Quiet Council of Krakoa, but it would seem that question was mostly answered by this bit of promotional art by Mike Deodato from a few months ago. 

The plot is inert, but the exposition is necessary and gives Jonathan Hickman some space for pleasing character moments. It’s nice to see the often marginalized Forge take on a big role as Cypher has in previous issues, though it’s hardly surprising given Hickman’s consistent interest in scientists and engineers through his body of work. It’s fun to see Hickman revisit Namor, the prickly and extraordinarily arrogant anti-hero of his New Avengers run. The extended sequence in which Xavier and Magneto recruit Emma Frost into their grand scheme fills in some crucial information about the X-Men’s pharmaceutical business that has been simmering in the background since House of X #1, and provides a crucial beat in which a very intelligent character voices skepticism of their master plan with a nod towards previous disastrous iterations of the “mutant island nation” notion on Genosha and Utopia. 

The final sequence in the distant future offers some plot movement, but the acceptance of Nimrod’s mutant archive into the Phalanx galactic hive mind is rendered with about as much drama as someone swiping a debit card and waiting a few moments for approval while having a vague concern about their checking account getting overdrawn.  Nimrod the Greater provides a huge amount of exposition regarding the evolution of machines and societies. There’s a few lines that nudge the reader to notice the parallels with the main plot about the establishment of the Krakoan nation-state – “a society so advanced that it collapsed in on itself,” “we asked for sovereignty, but with it came an unexpected price” – but it’s all just setting us up for the reveal of what happens when mutation and mutant culture is absorbed and assimilated into the Phalanx. It’s interesting, but not particularly exciting. 

R.B. Silva shows some signs in this issue of strain in keeping up the demanding schedule of producing six consecutive issues of Powers of X in what seems like a relatively tight window of time. His work is still quite good, but you can observe some cut corners – copy/pasted panels, more panels without backgrounds. I suppose some of this comes down to the extremely talky nature of Hickman’s script, and in fairness, Silva goes to town on drawing the holographic sea life of Forge’s home in Dallas. There is a slight blunder in that Silva draws Forge in his Jim Lee-era costume despite this sequence with him and Xavier apparently taking place long ago – this error seems to be addressed by blacking out his X belt buckle, though it’s still a generic X-Men uniform years before he’s a member. It’s no big deal, though.

Notes and observations:

• Magneto really hitting that “grow to an inferno” line hard, just in case the reader didn’t quite pick up on how aggressively Hickman was laying down the notion of an “Inferno” sequel in POX #4. 

• The covers for POX #4 and #5 are reversed in terms of their relationship to actual plot developments in each issue, but I figure this was done to throw off reader speculation. It worked on me! 

• The Forge/Xavier discussion about building Cerebro is the first scene of the series that perhaps didn’t really need to be dramatized, where all the information could’ve been conveyed in a text page. Still, it’s nice to get a moment with Forge and to observe Xavier as he advances his ambitions. And of course, we get a reminder that Xavier has off-world connections to the Shi’ar empire, and possesses something called “logic diamonds.” Surely all very useful information for later. 

• Emma Frost, Xavier, and Magneto meet at the Louvre by the Nike of Samothrace, a surviving masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of Victory. The statue, which is believed to be created to commemorate a victory of the navy, would seem to foreshadow Frost’s forthcoming nautical adventures in Marauders in which the Hellfire Club will become, as she puts it in this issue, “the East India trading company of mutantdom.” 

• So Moira X has a No-Place, eh? I’m just dying to see what she’s been up to in the present day. 

Lifedeath

“Lifedeath”
Uncanny X-Men #186 (1984)
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Barry Windsor-Smith

It’s pretty obvious that Storm was Chris Claremont’s favorite character. She, along with Wolverine, is the consistent center of the cast through his original 17-year run, and the character he gives the richest and most complex inner life. Claremont’s Storm is a woman of many contradictions – goddess and street urchin, compassionate idealist and ruthless revolutionary, leader and rebel. She’s proud and has an incredibly strong will, and most stories that focus on her are about an antagonist attempting – an ultimately failing – to dominate and control her. 

Storm’s original role in the X-Men leaned mostly on her “goddess” role. She was mostly a noble and serene presence – more emotional and instinctive in her leadership than the more cerebral and meticulously strategic Cyclops, more exotic and unknowable than her “girl next door” best friend Jean Grey, and connected to the natural world in a far more beautiful and spiritual way than the brutal and bestial Wolverine. Storm’s story becomes more complicated and interesting during Paul Smith’s run as artist in 1982 starting with her taking control of the underground society of mutant outcasts called the Morlocks after defeating their butch Patti Smith-esque punk leader Callisto in a knife fight, and having a brief lesbian fling with the Japanese thief Yukio while the X-Men are in Tokyo. (That’s not explicitly stated in the text, by the way, but come on.) She debuts her classic mohawk look at the end of that story, giving herself a punk makeover to reflect her emerging wild side. 

Storm was directly inspired to embrace the new look by interacting with Yukio and realizing how much she wanted to be like her. “I envy you your madness, Yukio,” she says in Uncanny #172. “It is a luxury denied me ever since my powers first appeared. My safety, and that of those around me, requires an inner serenity – an absolute harmony with the world itself – I have lost lately.” At this point in the story, Storm is learning to embrace her emotions and trust that her instincts will keep her from unleashing major ecological collateral damage. 

Over the next dozen or so issues, Storm struggles with this and with how other characters respond to her emotional growth. Kitty Pryde, always a harshly judgmental figure in X-lore, is particularly hard on Storm for having the nerve to be something other than the calm maternal figure she had come to love. In Uncanny #180, Storm confronts Kitty and addresses this conflict, with the adolescent Kitty countering Storm’s need to grow and change by petulantly declaring “Some things shouldn’t change, they should be constant!” Kitty comes around to accepting Storm’s tearful explanation of her adult need to find her true self and in doing so learn things about herself she might not like. Storm’s speech to Kitty in this issue reads a lot like someone explaining why they had to come out of the closet. 

All of this is setting the table for Uncanny #186, a special issue illustrated by guest artist Barry Windsor-Smith in which Storm deals with the immediate aftermath of losing her elemental powers and sense of sense of self. After making progress in her quest to balance her emotions and powers, the rug is pulled out from under her when she’s accidentally hit with a shot from a gun that neutralizes mutant powers that was intended for the fugitive Rogue. In this story, “Lifedeath,” she’s recovering in the home of the mutant inventor Forge, who she does not realize is the man who, on behalf of the U.S. government, created the weapon that robbed her of her gifts. 

“Lifedeath” is subtitled “a love story” on the cover of the issue, and is a very peculiar sort of romance. The majority of the issue is about Storm and Forge getting to know each other while she processes her trauma and is forced to reassess everything she thought she understood about herself. Forge is extremely attracted to her from the start, and she develops a crush on him over the course of the issue. He’s presented as intelligent, philosophical, and somewhat debonair, and lives in an elaborate high rise tricked out with incredible inventions – the most remarkable being a sort of holographic imaging that the can make structural elements appear invisible so furniture and bodies resting on them look as if they’re floating mid-air. 

The two begin to bond when Storm learns that Forge has endured serious trauma in his life and that he lost his right leg in an explosion while serving as a soldier in Vietnam. Over the course of a romantic dinner, she reveals to him that her severe claustrophobia is a result of having to watch her mother die while they were both trapped under rubble from a bomb that leveled their home when she was a small child in Cairo. Neither of them is used to this sort of intimacy, so the intensity of the situation is especially strong. They come close to consummating their attraction to one another, but are interrupted by a call – an in listening in, Storm learns of Forge’s complicity in her loss. Windsor-Smith, one of comics’ greatest draftsmen, nails every emotional beat with exquisite nuance.

Forge attempts to explain himself. He was just following orders and doing his job, of course! When he reveals to Storm that he is also a mutant, it only makes her more disgusted, as it’s clear just how much of a sell-out he is. Storm tells him off in rather brutal terms at the climax of the issue – “You live in your high tower – untouched, untouchable – surrounded by illusion, so terrified of the real, living world you cannot bear to violate the sanctity of your space with something as small as a flower. Your home is a true reflection of its creator: Cold, cruel, sterile, and ultimately, a deception.” Forge gets defensive, but it’s a waste of his time. Storm has, at least for now, made up her mind about him.

This is only the beginning of the Storm and Forge story, which would carry on and off through the next few years of Claremont’s run without ever coalescing into any sort of proper romantic partnership. Forge is Storm’s first major love interest, and for a very long time the only notable romantic pairing in her publication history. (She would eventually be in written into a brief and largely miserable marriage with Black Panther, another cold and emotionally stunted inventor/genius type.)

Forge is a very inspired romantic foil for Storm – it’s very easy to understand the reasons she would be attracted to him, but the intersection of his power and personality make him a potent metaphor for a particular sort of disappointing man. He has the power to create literally anything he can imagine, but he’s so damaged and lacking in imagination that he mostly squanders his gifts on flashy home decor and creating weapons. Storm is correct – his need to isolate himself makes him quite selfish, and that keeps him from doing real good for the world. He eventually becomes a member of the X-Men, but he never fulfills his potential in that capacity either. One way or another, he always reverts to form as an aloof government stooge who mostly just builds weapons that inflict the same sort of damage unto others as he experienced in Vietnam.