No Exit

"Once More, With Feeling" / "No Exit" / "In Excess" / "Holocaust!"
Astonishing X-Men #1-4 [1995]
Written by Scott Lobdell
Pencils by Joe Madureira
Inks by Tim Townshend, Dan Green, and Al Milgrom

"Age of Apocalypse" is a fun story and fan experience, but when I look at those issues now I mostly see a formal experiment that went very, very well. The creators who worked on the book – basically a small army led by X-Men lead writers Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza – were all recent inheritors of the X-Men franchise, which was still very much defined by Chris Claremont's 17-year run on Uncanny X-Men. Those creators were all fans who'd lucked into running the show after Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Whilce Portacio bailed on Marvel to form Image Comics in 1992, and mostly seemed to be doing their best to please fans of their predecessors through 1994. “Age of Apocalypse” wasn't just a sales stunt event, but an opportunity for all these writers and artists to flex and do something totally new that was an expression of their creativity rather than merely their adaptability.

The premise of the "Age of Apocalypse" is that the reader is tossed into a totally different X-world in which Charles Xavier died before founding the X-Men and the X-Men are instead led by Magneto on a planet which has been largely conquered by a despotic Apocalypse. The writers took this opportunity to radically reinterpret the franchise as a way of putting ironic twists on familiar characters – Beast and Cyclops are now baddies, Sabretooth is now a hero – but to build on then-recent narrative themes such as Nightcrawler discovering that his mother is Mystique or Iceman realizing that his low self-esteem has led him to not fully explore the possibilities of his powers. Nicieza took his X-Men book as an opportunity to add some details to Exodus, a major villain who was entirely vague at that moment, and Lobdell explored Sunfire, the temperamental Japanese X-Man who quit almost immediately after joining the team in Giant Size X-Men #1 and only appeared occasionally since. The plot of “Age of Apocalypse” is fine enough, but in the moment and to this day, the real thrill of it was in seeing the results of the creators going wild with the source material.

Astonishing X-Men has always been my favorite of the "Age of Apocalypse" mini-series, largely because it's illustrated by Joe Madureira just as he was hitting his stride. Madureira, only 20 years old at the time, is the definitive AOA artist and is responsible for the majority of the most memorable designs used in the event. In this series we get Sunfire, radically transformed into a being of living flame with a mask and bits of black armor to give definition to the contours of his body. There's Blink, a character he'd designed for the previous year's “Phalanx Covenant” event, remade from a cowardly young girl into a confident and heroic figure playing the Kitty Pryde/Jubilee ingenue role in this squad of X-Men. Madureira's most startling design is for the newly created villain Holocaust, who is basically a burning skeleton locked inside a hulking battle suit entirely comprised of clear armor.

Whereas the other artists drawing issues of the "Age of Apocalypse" event were working in the general stylistic milieu of Lee and Liefeld, Madureira's clean, cartoony line and dynamic storytelling style was more like Paul Smith channeled through the aesthetics of Japanese animation. Madureira's work here would turn out to be as influential and transformative as Arthur Adams and Jim Lee before him, and was crucial in establishing a new style for X-Men that was not based in emulating departed talent.

By the time Lobdell had started on Astonishing X-Men he'd had plenty of practice in writing ensemble casts, and in this mini-series he was showing off how naturally the rhythm of it all came to him while establishing a lot of world building. He fills out the tragic backstory of this Sunfire, establishes this version of Sabretooth as a rough equivalent of Wolverine totally at odds with the irredeemable monster he was writing in proper continuity as if to provoke a nature vs nurture argument, and makes Blink so cool and fun that Marvel editorial would have to go out of its way to create the dimension-hopping Exiles series as a way of bending the rules of continuity to satisfy fan demand given that the "real" version was killed off shortly after being introduced. The relationship between Sabretooth and Blink is particularly powerful, echoing the surrogate father/daughter dynamic of Wolverine and Jubilee but more poignant given the dystopian backdrop of the story. (It's worth noting that Lobdell and Nicieza very obviously patterned their regular continuity version of Sabretooth on Hannibal Lecter, so giving Blink the name Clarice has an interesting charge to it.)

Lobdell's cast of Astonishing X-Men is so different from the one that he was writing in Uncanny X-Men that the only character in both casts is Rogue, and this version of Rogue is a very different person. This Rogue is married to Magneto and co-leader of the X-Men, and carries herself with a gravitas far different from the loose cannon energy of her regular continuity counterpart. The most intriguing AOA versions of characters answer the question of "what if this X-Man had a totally different life?" in ways that invert what we know about them in compelling ways – a sullen Nightcrawler without Catholic dogma, a demented and sadistic Beast, or a smug and immensely powerful Iceman. Seeing those characters without constraints is a revelation, whereas Rogue without the burdens of her power or having to live down bad decisions of her past just makes her come across like a generic superhero.

Precipice

“Precipice”
Uncanny X-Men #238 (1995)
Written by Scott Lobdell
Pencils by Joe Madureira
Inks by Tim Townshend

Most of the best X-Men stories are, in some way, about failure. The heroism of the X-Men is more in how they persist in trying to do the right thing and stand up to oppression, not in them frequently succeeding in their goals. “Precipice,” a high point in Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureira’s mid-‘90s run, is largely about the X-Men acknowledging the limits of their idealistic philosophy and suffering for it. 

The story starts with Charles Xavier confronting the X-Men’s prisoner, the murderous psychopath Sabretooth, and admitting that he’s given up on his attempts to rehabilitate him and give him a second chance among the X-Men. Xavier is magnanimous but stern when confronting Sabretooth – it pains him that he can’t figure out how to curb Sabretooth’s homicidal rages, or integrate him into the group as he had with Wolverine, Rogue, or Gambit. Sabretooth is too far gone, and he knows it. He taunts Xavier, bragging about how he never wanted to be saved, and that he loves having the power to kill with impunity. Xavier can only counter Sabretooth’s argument with moralism and reason, but he knows he’s wasting his time. More than any other major X-Men antagonist, Sabretooth represents pure amoral id. He has no ideology, no agenda. He’s just a sadist and a savage. Xavier owns up to his failure, and decides to pass him along to government custody. 

Sabretooth is, by design, the dark opposite of Wolverine. They have more or less the same powers – healing, claws, enhanced senses – but Sabretooth is bigger, and stronger. Wolverine has a nobility and morality in contrast with his violent rages, but Sabretooth is a total nihilist. The only thing he seems to care about at all is causing pain and satisfying his base urges. “Precipice” is the conclusion of a long-running B-plot through much of the mid-90s in which Sabretooth is held captive by the X-Men in the mansion, where he largely behaves like a mutant version of Hannibal Lechter, with various women in the X-Men – Jean Grey, Boom Boom, and Psylocke – playing the Clarice Starling role in different ways.

All three of those women appear in “Precipice.” Jean, who had previously intimidated and belittled Sabretooth, sticks to the sidelines and supports Xavier in his decision. She certainly sees no point in trying to redeem this guy. Boom Boom, a compassionate but not particularly clever member of the junior X-Force squad, faces Sabretooth on her own, furious to realize she had fallen for his ruse when he had been pretending to be mentally impaired following an encounter with Wolverine that seemed to partially lobotomize him. “I trusted you!,” she shouts while slapping him in the face. “I believed your brain was all out of whack! I was there for you when everybody else had written you off!” Sabretooth, ever the sadist, just tells her that she’s an idiot, and then plays on her considerable insecurities about her white trash family and feeling like a loser among the X-Men until she retaliates by hitting him with an energy blast that sets him loose.

Sabretooth’s casual manipulation of Boom Boom is so heartbreaking. She’s not stupid, just guided by raw emotions and obvious self-loathing. Her compassion is real, but also just a transparent desire to stick up for broken losers – like herself, like her own father. Sabretooth and Boom Boom’s dynamic is a dark mirror of Wolverine’s more wholesome relationship with Jubilee, another teen character with a very similar personality and superpower. What if Wolverine was a sociopath? What if Jubilee had no self-esteem whatsoever? 

Psylocke observes this moment between Sabretooth and Boom Boom, and is there to intervene when he’s set free. Psylocke and Sabretooth have a shared history – the two faced off in the issue during the Mutant Massacre storyline in which she joined the team. Back then it was a deliberately mis-matched fight, with the frail and demure Psylocke seeming like easy prey for this brutish psycho. She managed to defeat him, and proved herself as X-Men material. This time around, the duel seems more evenly matched, as Psylocke is now in her Asian ninja body. But it doesn’t go nearly so well, as her attempt to use her psychic power backfires on her, and he eviscerates her. 

The issue ends with Sabretooth having escaped, Psylocke being on death’s door, and Boom Boom in tears, knowing that her emotional weakness may have led to Psylocke’s death, and the inevitable deaths of whoever else gets in the path of this unhinged maniac. The issue starts with Xavier and his top lieutenants having to admit they can’t redeem Sabretooth, and ends with them being proven correct in the most awful way. Boom Boom has to face up to the reality that her faith in the notion of redemption had only made her the perfect mark for an ultra violent con man. 

“Precipice” is more upsetting in the context of Lobdell and Madureira’s previous story focusing on Sabretooth in the alternate reality Age of Apocalypse event. In this world, where Xavier died young and the X-Men were founded by Magneto, Sabretooth is a heroic figure and essentially has Wolverine’s role in the group. Madureira, whose art is so stylized and dynamic that some might not notice the elegant nuances of his cartooning, draws these Sabretooths very differently. The AOA Sabretooth stands tall with good posture, and carries himself with obvious pride. The “real” Sabretooth is always slouching, and moves like a cross between a tiger and gorilla. Madureira draws him with vacant eyes and cruel toothy grin, like The Joker as a wild animal. 

The heroes in the story have softer features, and emote with big eyes and display their confidence – or lack thereof – in how they carry their arms and shoulders. Madureira portrays Jean Grey as empathetic and uncertain, Cyclops as strong and decisive, Bishop as angry and conflicted, and Xavier as cold and aloof. Psylocke appears bold and defiant, while Boom Boom looks defensive even when she’s being confrontational. Madureira rightly gets a lot of credit for his excellent sense of design and his intuitive skill in making his pages look vibrant and uncluttered, but he’s just as brilliant in conveying a lot of information about characters without the writer needing to explicate much about their interiority in dialogue or exposition.