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Welcome to THE COLUMN OF KARMA, the new poorly named feature of Deconstructing Merr, where Karmapoliced talks about whatever his limited mind can come up with (so don't expect much). This months installment has Karma in a reflective mood as he looks back on his earliest introduction the world of the Uncanny X-Men. Be sure to tune in next month when he reveals once and for all what MERR really means.
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Early 1989 was a good time to be an X-Men fan. Marc Silvestri was hitting his peak on Uncanny X-Men as some of his best work to date was being produced in the classic Inferno storyline. Excalibur was one of the best looking comics on the stands with Alan Davis' gorgeous artwork. Cable had not yet turned the New Mutants into a squad of commandos. And the original five X-Men still had their own book with X-Factor. It was a time before full blown X-mania kicked in and the excess of the nineties all but took away the magic that had been a part of the line for almost a decade.
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It was also a very confusing time for those just coming into the books. I was one of them. While I was already an avid comic book reader, my reading was limited to more comedic comics. I vaguely remember reading a series from Marvel about a vampire duck. Groo the Wanderer by Sergio Aragone's was by far my favorite comic series. And, of course I followed the exploits of Spider-Ham. In fact, the only real superhero comics I had the slightest interest in were Spider-Man due to some of the Marvel Tales comics which reprinted many of the older various Spider-Man comics. One of the sparse issue's I had picked up featured the two issues in which Gwen Stacy was killed. The drama that was in the issue really peaked my interest in what super hero stories had to offer. I wanted to delve deeper into the spandex genre of comics.
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But where to start? I would be so confused by what was going on in the superhero comics. I'd flip through a copy of Excalibur, vaguely knowing that Nightcrawler and Shadowcat were X-Men, and couldn't figure out why they were here when they were supposed to be there. Wolverine was in his own series, as well as Marvel Comics Presents, as well as X-Men, and whatever guest book he happened to be gracing the cover of. I didn't know which one to pick up. My choices were limited because either my Mom would only buy me one or I didn't have enough allowance money for more than one or two (I was only 11 years old then).
Luckily, Marvel comics were putting out a series called Classic X-Men, which was similar to what Marvel Tales was doing with old Spider-Man stories. The difference is that Marvel Tales jumped around in the continuity of Spider-Man while Classic X-Men started at the introduction of the new X-Men from Giant Sized X-Men #1 and continued on up numerically through the series. Also, Classic was treated each and every issue with a backup story written by Chris Claremont, writer of the original material, and art by John Bolton that would gave the stories and characters further depth. Another great added bonus to the C.X. was the added material placed within the original stories that fleshed out the stories from a hindsight point of view.
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My first X-related comic was Excalibur #3, but it wasn't until I picked up Classic X-Men #31 that I really got hooked into the line of comics and fell in love with these characters. C.X. #31 was a reprint of Uncanny X-Men #125. The story within was the first part of the Proteus saga, which is one of my personal favorite comic books stories and the beginning of the peak of the Claremont/John Byrne run of the series. Proteus was the son of Moria McTaggart and the reason why she ran the Mutant Research center on Muir Island. In order to survive, he had to be cooped up in a cell that had an energy field that protected his body. If he was outside of the cell, his body would slowly discorporate and he would eventually die. His power gave him the ability to swap his essence into a host body. Unfortunately, that person would cease to live as soon as he would take them over and that body would slowly begin to discorporate and thusly, host body after host body would be needed for his survival. His need for a constant supply of host bodies would make him a very deadly mutant. Moria knew what he could be capable of and spent many years trying to find a cure for him to no avail. Proteus, or Mutant X, would be restricted to his cell for the rest of his life.
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That is until Magneto came to Muir Island to stage an attack on the X-Men back in Uncanny #104 (Classic #12). During the attack, the seal to the door of Mutant X's cell was damaged. Muir Island was evacuated as the X-Men fled from Magneto's attack. Mutant X waited all alone in the abandoned facility until a boating captain by the name of Angus MacWhirter came along. MacWhirter had a grudge against the mutants after the boat they rented from him was blown up by Magneto in Uncanny #104. He blamed the X-Men for this and had come to the island to set some charges and blow up the main facility. He didn't get that chance. Mutant X took over his body and then planned on leaving the island when Moria had returned with Jean Grey, Lorna Dane, Alex Summers, and Jamie Madrox (Phoenix, Polaris, Havok, and the Multiple Man). He decided to feed once more before leaving and he chose Phoenix as his target. But when he tried to take over her body, he found she was a bit too powerful for him to possess, and took one of the Multiple Mans clones instead.
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What followed was a reunion with the assortment of characters on the island with the rest of the X-Men, who were thought dead after a confrontation with Magneto in the Savage Land. And the hunt for Proteus began. Another power of Proteus was revealed. He could actually alter reality. He was later regarded as one of the most powerful mutants ever because of his great psionic powers. And he's one of the few adversaries� who put real fear into Wolverine. Wolverine's confrontation with Proteus shook him up very bad and led to one of the most memorable scenes in-between Cyclops and Wolvie. Cylops felt that Wolverine had lost his edge during the battle and decided to push him around, evoking Wolverine to a near barbaric rage. Cylops then brought Nightcrawler and Storm, who were also involved in the confrontation that shook Wolvie so bad, into what he considered a "danger room session". Once the dust settled, Wolverine realized that Cyclops was really just trying to snap him out of it. It was the first time Cyclops got genuine respect as a team leader from Wolverine.
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The story lasted four issues and concluded with an end of innocence of sorts with Colossus as he lays Proteus low. A love begins to blossom at the end of the arc as well, as Moria and Sean Cassidy (Banshee) come together. And the seeds that lead to dark phoenix are firmly planted within this arc as Jason Wyngrade's control over Jean slowly and surely take hold. That was the beauty of comics back then. A creative team would stay on a series long enough to be able to drop plot points here and there within a story that could evolve into a bigger story down the line. The seeds for the Proteus saga were planted 21 issues before the actual storyline came about. Too bad nowadays the kind of commitment Chris Claremont had to the X-Men (he spent 17 years writing the Uncanny X-Men and various spin offs) is so rare.
Hopefully, you're already familiar with the story I speak of in this article, and this has been a trip down memory lane. If not, then there isn't a comic story I could recommend more. For whatever reason, the Proteus saga has never been in any kind of trade paperback format. Luckily for us, there was that great series called Classic X-Men. Even now, you can find those issues at most any back issue bin at your local comic store for a relatively cheap price. Or, if you have access to the original issues, give the X-Men: Vignettes trade paperback a glance through. It contains many of the backup stories from the back of the C.X. series by Claremont and Bolten.
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