raul grau
May 10, 2005, 02:58 pm
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/logos/cfdlogo.jpg" hspace=10 align=left border=0 alt="Comics For Dummies logo">By Raul Grau, RJacknite@aol.com
M is for Magneto
The Avengers and the X-Men. One is a collection of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, brought together to right wrongs and avenge things, while the other is an assortment of mutant vigilantes, defending a world that rather dislikes them. With such dissimilar mission statements, it is a wonder that the two teams ever meet for tea and fisticuffs, but there have been several shared storylines in their over forty years of comic history. So what brings the two together? Is it their shared anniversary, their shared creators, or their shared love of dramatic line-up changes? Or is it all because of one magnetic man, in a gaudy purple and red costume, who just cannot decide which team to torment?
The first meeting between the X-Men and the Avengers (well, an Avenger) took place in Avengers #3, just four months after both teams made their debut. The Hulk had smashed his way out of the roster in the previous issue, and the Avengers needed him back... he was the only one with a self-titled solo series, after all. To aid in the Hulk hunt, Iron Man unveiled a never-before-seen (and never-seen-again) gadget, which allowed him to project his image to all the other superpowered people in the state, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and those X-folks. He politely asked each if they had happened to see a seven foot tall, overly muscled green guy lately, but, surprisingly, no one had seen him, and the cameo fest reached its end. The Avengers then put down the technological marvels, picked up the phone, and called Rick Jones (sidekick to the stars), who led them straight into a slugfest with the Hulk and Sub-Mariner (before Wolverine and Punisher came along, those two were Marvel's go-to anti-heroes). Still, history had been made, with first contact between the two fledging teams. Oh, and if you're wondering why Iron Man knew how to find the supposedly covert X-Men, then the answer should be obvious... you're thinking much too hard.
A year later, in The (not yet Uncanny) X-Men #9, the two teams had their first non-holographic encounter... and, of course, their first confusion-induced, all-heroes battle. The usually pacifistic Professor Xavier used his European vacation to track down Lucifer (not the fallen angel, but a similarly named alien), the man (well, the alien advance scout) responsible for his paraplegia. Xavier learned that Lucifer had tied a thermonuclear device in with his own heartbeat, so if one dropped dramatically, the other would explode (also dramatically). The Professor alerted his X-Men of this Spawn-esque turn of events, so the mutant squad had to keep Lucifer from harm... and wouldn't you know it, the Avengers showed up to harm him. Tracking 'vibrations of pure evil', Earth's Mightiest Plot Devices were forced into conflict with the X-Men, as explanations would have taken far too long, and meant far less action. Lucifer was momentarily distracted by the spandexed tussle, so Xavier seized the opportunity to telepathically knock the villain unconscious (something he apparently could not have done earlier). With no 'evil vibrations' left, the Avengers departed, the X-Men defused the bomb, and Xavier let Lucifer (the man who crippled him and nearly caused nuclear annihilation) go... makes you wonder why he bothered hunting Lucifer down in the first place.
The Marvel Universe got a little smaller a few months later, when Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (the Donnie and Marie of the evil mutant set) became full-time Avengers (replacing nobodies like Iron Man and Thor). Their former leader, Magneto, did not take kindly to their defection (just wait until he found out that he were his children), starting the trend of Avengers/X-Men stories featuring Marvel's Master of Marketing... I mean, Magnetism. In 1967, Magneto took some time off from menacing the X-Men to menace the Avengers, successfully coercing the speedster and his witchy sister back into the (gender-neutral) Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Unlike with Hulk, the Avengers took their time looking for their missing members, but, to be fair, they were quite busy racially integrating the team (ah, the 60s.. so young... so free... so socially relevant).
Over in their series, the X-Men were captured by Magneto, but the high-flying Angel escaped, and managed to wing his way across the shelf to the Avengers, making this one of the earliest crossovers in Marvel history (and also one of the most confusing). You see, Magneto had allowed Angel to escape, and planted a listening device in his wings (which you think he would have noticed). The Avengers found the bug and disabled it, then tied Angel up, believing him to be a spy. They ran into the also escaped Cyclops, but he mistook them for imposters, and proceeded to single-handedly defeat Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Cyclops freed the other X-Men, but Magneto took control of their minds, and commanded the X-kids to fight the Avengers... who somehow defeat the united X-Men, when they could not take down the lone Cyclops moments earlier (his team was obviously holding him back). Just then, Magneto's device was disabled by Angel, who was only pretending to be the captive of the Avengers, who had realized that... oh, nevermind. In the end, the heroes escaped unscathed (but confused), Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch left for a place without spandexed battles (they never found it), and Magneto was killed, never to be seen again...
Five years later, Magneto was seen again in the pages of The Avengers, and this time he decided to capture and mentally enslave the X-Men... which was much better than his last plan. However, this was during the period between the cancellation of their series and their 1975 Giant Size return, so I'm sure that the X-Men appreciated the opportunity to be captured and mentally enslaved again. Once again, the Avengers were drawn into the fray, and heroes were forced to pound away on other heroes, but it was the intervention of Black Widow and Daredevil (two relatively un-super superheroes), and a brief sojourn into his solo series, that won the day. Daredevil turned down Avengers status (he was much too busy with foes like Man-Bull and Angar the Screamer), but Black Widow (the former Russian spy) accepted, and remained a member in good standing for almost two issues. Meanwhile, the X-Men returned to limbo, awaiting the day when Len Wein and Dave Cockrum would dust off the concept, and introduce new members who would prove to be more popular than the originals ever were... which sort of explains why the book was never canceled again.
Almost fifteen years went by without a major confrontation between the two teams (how dare they not fight for our amusement!), but fears that heroes would no longer take time away from villains to beat each other up were allayed with the X-Men vs. Avengers miniseries. This four-issue festival of slugfests, racially charged ideological quandaries, and more slugfests began with Asteroid M, Magneto's former home away from homeworld, crashing into Earth, meteorite by meteorite. Magneto, who at this point had renounced his Evil Mutant ways, spent the next few issues dodging the X-Men (who were trying to save him from himself), the Avengers (who were trying to save him for trial), and the pinko Commie Soviet Super-Soldiers (who were trying to save him for later execution). All the while, the three teams engaged in short skirmishes with each other, so the philosophy thankfully never had time to overwhelm the mindless violence. Magneto eventually turned himself over to the Avengers, but used his old mental enslaving trick to publicly exonerate himself when the trial appeared to not be going his way... I said that he reformed, I never said that he was stupid.
Throughout the rest of the late 80s, the Avengers and X-Men would play in each other's sandboxes, without ever stopping to talk. This passive-aggressive pattern had actually begun the year before magnetic meteors fell, when the Avengers discovered a Jean Grey-shaped cocoon in Jamaica Bay (so you can thank them for her return, and death, and return). When a demonic Inferno made New York City even more unbearable than it already was, a new band of Avengers (well, not so much Avengers, more like half of the Fantastic Four with some mythological beings sprinkled in) came together to defend the city from carnivorous pay phones. The Avengers were later granted their own mega-crossover, Acts of Vengeance, which worked on the premise that villains attacking heroes who were not accustomed to them would fair better... and with Stilt Man going after the Fantastic Four, what could have gone wrong? The X-Men were on the receiving end of one of these Acts, when the ring-happy Mandarin sent his (unoriginally named) Lady Mandarin on a kill run. Of course, once she was revealed to be the captured and mentally enslaved X-Man, Psylocke, Wolverine welcomed her back into the fold... he understood, because that sort of thing happens to him all the time.
In 1993, as part of the thirtieth anniversary festivities for both franchises (which included oversized specials, foil covers, and, I'm sure, cake), the Avengers and X-Men were led by the nose into their next confrontation. Bloodties was atypical, as Magneto himself was not the driving force behind the conflict... but, at the time, he was quite occupied with having the mental function of an eggplant, after a particularly nasty run-in with Xavier's telepathy, so that afforded him an absent note. Still, even without higher brain functions, Magneto was the inspiration for the carnage, as his two chief sycophants, Fabian Cortez and Exodus (both racist mutants with long hair and ill-defined energy powers... making them the very model of a 90s X-Men villain), were fighting in his name, with Luna, the granddaughter of the magnetic one, as the human shield between them. The X-Men and Avengers did not actually run into each other until the final chapter of this five issue saga, and never found the time to fight amongst themselves, save the brief moment when Quicksilver accidentally attacked his wife, Crystal, in a darkened room... but then, who hasn't accidentally attacked their wife at least once in their lives?
Three years later, the Avengers and the X-Men again shared the same stage, but Onslaught was a crossover like no other... thankfully. The whole of the Marvel Universe (or, at least, most of the heroes in the New York metropolitan area) came together to defeat Onslaught, a psionic being composed of the most evil parts of Professor Xavier (the guy who let his crippler go) and Magneto (you must have known that he would be involved somehow). After his candy-coated shell was cracked, Onslaught was revealed to be a Star Trek-style energy cloud, and the Avengers were among the heroes who rushed headfirst into said energy cloud, absorbing it into their nearly indestructible forms, and allowing the X-Men to eliminate the colorful nimbus by destroying the heroes (even the seemingly indestructible ones)... I never said that it was the best plan. Fortunately for everyone involved, the dead heroes were Reborn a short time later, after being freed from their Liefeldian nightmare world. So, it turns out, the X-Men did not really kill more superheroes in a single afternoon than every villain in Marvel history put together.
That brings us to last year, and the Bendis board-clearing event known as Avengers: Disassembled. It seems that Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, had quietly gone completely insane, though no one (including her readers) had noticed. With her reality-rewriting powers run amok, inexplicable events began taking place around her fellow Avengers... events even more inexplicable than Scarlet Witch going insane and no one noticing. To keep their friend from further hurting herself (or themselves, for that matter), the assembled Avengers allowed her mind to be shut off, and then turned her body over to Magneto, who has some experience with that sort of thing. The remaining Avengers decided to dissolve their team, so, technically, the X-Men are now the longer lived franchise, since they never called it quits just because they were being mentally corrupted by one of their own... that kind of thing happens to the X-Men all the time, and you don't see them complaining. Of course, New Avengers were soon located, paving the way for yet another Avengers/X-Men brouhaha... it has been nearly ten years since Onslaught, so another pointless battle is past due.
From all appearances, House of M (Magneto? Maximoff? Marvel? Mutants? Marketing Gimmick?) will fall nicely within the vein of Avengers/X-Men stories. Scarlet Witch, fresh from her Disassembled-induced coma, is set to spearhead the event, meaning Magneto will not be far behind (he has become a prerequisite, after all). An Age of Apocalypse (or, more germane to this discussion, Heroes Reborn) style alternate timeline will overtake the current one, with Magneto as the commissar of that world... so some mental enslavement is sure to follow. Hopefully, either in this universe or in that one, some Avengers and some X-Men will fight amongst themselves... it really does not matter if there is a wacky misunderstanding or not, there just has to be some pointless violence to fulfill the team meeting model.
Some readers will no doubt argue that House of M needs to be incredible, in order to justify the Marvel-created hype and the full fifty issues of tie-ins released over the course of four months, but think for a moment about the past Avengers/X-Men meetings, with their 'evil vibrations', triple-crossing plans, and evil clouds. As long as House of M is able to string together plot twists not derived from episodes of Three's Company, it should be considered a rousing success.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau likens the periodic Avengers/X-Men meetings to the Justice League of America/Justice Society of America team-ups from DC. He admits, however, that the Justice Society never killed every member of the Justice League in an effort to destroy an energy cloud.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.
M is for Magneto
The Avengers and the X-Men. One is a collection of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, brought together to right wrongs and avenge things, while the other is an assortment of mutant vigilantes, defending a world that rather dislikes them. With such dissimilar mission statements, it is a wonder that the two teams ever meet for tea and fisticuffs, but there have been several shared storylines in their over forty years of comic history. So what brings the two together? Is it their shared anniversary, their shared creators, or their shared love of dramatic line-up changes? Or is it all because of one magnetic man, in a gaudy purple and red costume, who just cannot decide which team to torment?
The first meeting between the X-Men and the Avengers (well, an Avenger) took place in Avengers #3, just four months after both teams made their debut. The Hulk had smashed his way out of the roster in the previous issue, and the Avengers needed him back... he was the only one with a self-titled solo series, after all. To aid in the Hulk hunt, Iron Man unveiled a never-before-seen (and never-seen-again) gadget, which allowed him to project his image to all the other superpowered people in the state, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and those X-folks. He politely asked each if they had happened to see a seven foot tall, overly muscled green guy lately, but, surprisingly, no one had seen him, and the cameo fest reached its end. The Avengers then put down the technological marvels, picked up the phone, and called Rick Jones (sidekick to the stars), who led them straight into a slugfest with the Hulk and Sub-Mariner (before Wolverine and Punisher came along, those two were Marvel's go-to anti-heroes). Still, history had been made, with first contact between the two fledging teams. Oh, and if you're wondering why Iron Man knew how to find the supposedly covert X-Men, then the answer should be obvious... you're thinking much too hard.
A year later, in The (not yet Uncanny) X-Men #9, the two teams had their first non-holographic encounter... and, of course, their first confusion-induced, all-heroes battle. The usually pacifistic Professor Xavier used his European vacation to track down Lucifer (not the fallen angel, but a similarly named alien), the man (well, the alien advance scout) responsible for his paraplegia. Xavier learned that Lucifer had tied a thermonuclear device in with his own heartbeat, so if one dropped dramatically, the other would explode (also dramatically). The Professor alerted his X-Men of this Spawn-esque turn of events, so the mutant squad had to keep Lucifer from harm... and wouldn't you know it, the Avengers showed up to harm him. Tracking 'vibrations of pure evil', Earth's Mightiest Plot Devices were forced into conflict with the X-Men, as explanations would have taken far too long, and meant far less action. Lucifer was momentarily distracted by the spandexed tussle, so Xavier seized the opportunity to telepathically knock the villain unconscious (something he apparently could not have done earlier). With no 'evil vibrations' left, the Avengers departed, the X-Men defused the bomb, and Xavier let Lucifer (the man who crippled him and nearly caused nuclear annihilation) go... makes you wonder why he bothered hunting Lucifer down in the first place.
The Marvel Universe got a little smaller a few months later, when Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (the Donnie and Marie of the evil mutant set) became full-time Avengers (replacing nobodies like Iron Man and Thor). Their former leader, Magneto, did not take kindly to their defection (just wait until he found out that he were his children), starting the trend of Avengers/X-Men stories featuring Marvel's Master of Marketing... I mean, Magnetism. In 1967, Magneto took some time off from menacing the X-Men to menace the Avengers, successfully coercing the speedster and his witchy sister back into the (gender-neutral) Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Unlike with Hulk, the Avengers took their time looking for their missing members, but, to be fair, they were quite busy racially integrating the team (ah, the 60s.. so young... so free... so socially relevant).
Over in their series, the X-Men were captured by Magneto, but the high-flying Angel escaped, and managed to wing his way across the shelf to the Avengers, making this one of the earliest crossovers in Marvel history (and also one of the most confusing). You see, Magneto had allowed Angel to escape, and planted a listening device in his wings (which you think he would have noticed). The Avengers found the bug and disabled it, then tied Angel up, believing him to be a spy. They ran into the also escaped Cyclops, but he mistook them for imposters, and proceeded to single-handedly defeat Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Cyclops freed the other X-Men, but Magneto took control of their minds, and commanded the X-kids to fight the Avengers... who somehow defeat the united X-Men, when they could not take down the lone Cyclops moments earlier (his team was obviously holding him back). Just then, Magneto's device was disabled by Angel, who was only pretending to be the captive of the Avengers, who had realized that... oh, nevermind. In the end, the heroes escaped unscathed (but confused), Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch left for a place without spandexed battles (they never found it), and Magneto was killed, never to be seen again...
Five years later, Magneto was seen again in the pages of The Avengers, and this time he decided to capture and mentally enslave the X-Men... which was much better than his last plan. However, this was during the period between the cancellation of their series and their 1975 Giant Size return, so I'm sure that the X-Men appreciated the opportunity to be captured and mentally enslaved again. Once again, the Avengers were drawn into the fray, and heroes were forced to pound away on other heroes, but it was the intervention of Black Widow and Daredevil (two relatively un-super superheroes), and a brief sojourn into his solo series, that won the day. Daredevil turned down Avengers status (he was much too busy with foes like Man-Bull and Angar the Screamer), but Black Widow (the former Russian spy) accepted, and remained a member in good standing for almost two issues. Meanwhile, the X-Men returned to limbo, awaiting the day when Len Wein and Dave Cockrum would dust off the concept, and introduce new members who would prove to be more popular than the originals ever were... which sort of explains why the book was never canceled again.
Almost fifteen years went by without a major confrontation between the two teams (how dare they not fight for our amusement!), but fears that heroes would no longer take time away from villains to beat each other up were allayed with the X-Men vs. Avengers miniseries. This four-issue festival of slugfests, racially charged ideological quandaries, and more slugfests began with Asteroid M, Magneto's former home away from homeworld, crashing into Earth, meteorite by meteorite. Magneto, who at this point had renounced his Evil Mutant ways, spent the next few issues dodging the X-Men (who were trying to save him from himself), the Avengers (who were trying to save him for trial), and the pinko Commie Soviet Super-Soldiers (who were trying to save him for later execution). All the while, the three teams engaged in short skirmishes with each other, so the philosophy thankfully never had time to overwhelm the mindless violence. Magneto eventually turned himself over to the Avengers, but used his old mental enslaving trick to publicly exonerate himself when the trial appeared to not be going his way... I said that he reformed, I never said that he was stupid.
Throughout the rest of the late 80s, the Avengers and X-Men would play in each other's sandboxes, without ever stopping to talk. This passive-aggressive pattern had actually begun the year before magnetic meteors fell, when the Avengers discovered a Jean Grey-shaped cocoon in Jamaica Bay (so you can thank them for her return, and death, and return). When a demonic Inferno made New York City even more unbearable than it already was, a new band of Avengers (well, not so much Avengers, more like half of the Fantastic Four with some mythological beings sprinkled in) came together to defend the city from carnivorous pay phones. The Avengers were later granted their own mega-crossover, Acts of Vengeance, which worked on the premise that villains attacking heroes who were not accustomed to them would fair better... and with Stilt Man going after the Fantastic Four, what could have gone wrong? The X-Men were on the receiving end of one of these Acts, when the ring-happy Mandarin sent his (unoriginally named) Lady Mandarin on a kill run. Of course, once she was revealed to be the captured and mentally enslaved X-Man, Psylocke, Wolverine welcomed her back into the fold... he understood, because that sort of thing happens to him all the time.
In 1993, as part of the thirtieth anniversary festivities for both franchises (which included oversized specials, foil covers, and, I'm sure, cake), the Avengers and X-Men were led by the nose into their next confrontation. Bloodties was atypical, as Magneto himself was not the driving force behind the conflict... but, at the time, he was quite occupied with having the mental function of an eggplant, after a particularly nasty run-in with Xavier's telepathy, so that afforded him an absent note. Still, even without higher brain functions, Magneto was the inspiration for the carnage, as his two chief sycophants, Fabian Cortez and Exodus (both racist mutants with long hair and ill-defined energy powers... making them the very model of a 90s X-Men villain), were fighting in his name, with Luna, the granddaughter of the magnetic one, as the human shield between them. The X-Men and Avengers did not actually run into each other until the final chapter of this five issue saga, and never found the time to fight amongst themselves, save the brief moment when Quicksilver accidentally attacked his wife, Crystal, in a darkened room... but then, who hasn't accidentally attacked their wife at least once in their lives?
Three years later, the Avengers and the X-Men again shared the same stage, but Onslaught was a crossover like no other... thankfully. The whole of the Marvel Universe (or, at least, most of the heroes in the New York metropolitan area) came together to defeat Onslaught, a psionic being composed of the most evil parts of Professor Xavier (the guy who let his crippler go) and Magneto (you must have known that he would be involved somehow). After his candy-coated shell was cracked, Onslaught was revealed to be a Star Trek-style energy cloud, and the Avengers were among the heroes who rushed headfirst into said energy cloud, absorbing it into their nearly indestructible forms, and allowing the X-Men to eliminate the colorful nimbus by destroying the heroes (even the seemingly indestructible ones)... I never said that it was the best plan. Fortunately for everyone involved, the dead heroes were Reborn a short time later, after being freed from their Liefeldian nightmare world. So, it turns out, the X-Men did not really kill more superheroes in a single afternoon than every villain in Marvel history put together.
That brings us to last year, and the Bendis board-clearing event known as Avengers: Disassembled. It seems that Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, had quietly gone completely insane, though no one (including her readers) had noticed. With her reality-rewriting powers run amok, inexplicable events began taking place around her fellow Avengers... events even more inexplicable than Scarlet Witch going insane and no one noticing. To keep their friend from further hurting herself (or themselves, for that matter), the assembled Avengers allowed her mind to be shut off, and then turned her body over to Magneto, who has some experience with that sort of thing. The remaining Avengers decided to dissolve their team, so, technically, the X-Men are now the longer lived franchise, since they never called it quits just because they were being mentally corrupted by one of their own... that kind of thing happens to the X-Men all the time, and you don't see them complaining. Of course, New Avengers were soon located, paving the way for yet another Avengers/X-Men brouhaha... it has been nearly ten years since Onslaught, so another pointless battle is past due.
From all appearances, House of M (Magneto? Maximoff? Marvel? Mutants? Marketing Gimmick?) will fall nicely within the vein of Avengers/X-Men stories. Scarlet Witch, fresh from her Disassembled-induced coma, is set to spearhead the event, meaning Magneto will not be far behind (he has become a prerequisite, after all). An Age of Apocalypse (or, more germane to this discussion, Heroes Reborn) style alternate timeline will overtake the current one, with Magneto as the commissar of that world... so some mental enslavement is sure to follow. Hopefully, either in this universe or in that one, some Avengers and some X-Men will fight amongst themselves... it really does not matter if there is a wacky misunderstanding or not, there just has to be some pointless violence to fulfill the team meeting model.
Some readers will no doubt argue that House of M needs to be incredible, in order to justify the Marvel-created hype and the full fifty issues of tie-ins released over the course of four months, but think for a moment about the past Avengers/X-Men meetings, with their 'evil vibrations', triple-crossing plans, and evil clouds. As long as House of M is able to string together plot twists not derived from episodes of Three's Company, it should be considered a rousing success.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau likens the periodic Avengers/X-Men meetings to the Justice League of America/Justice Society of America team-ups from DC. He admits, however, that the Justice Society never killed every member of the Justice League in an effort to destroy an energy cloud.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.