THE TRIAL OF THE BRUTE

MUTANT X #6 (MARVEL COMICS)

“In another place–in another life–Alex Summers led a team of mutants in a battle against oppression. His methods were extreme, his tactics questionable, but–in his soul–he knew that he was fighting for the greater good.

Now that soul has been transferred to another world, and Summers, also known as Havok, has found himself living a lie, allied with a team of mutants who are sinister, parallel versions of his friends and family. It is to this dark, new place that Havok has come, where he stands as a man alone… a mutant alone. Alex Summers is Mutant X.

Fear him. Fear for him.”

25 years ago, Marvel Comics launched Mutant X, a Havok led X-spinoff. I recently came into a complete run of the series, and so now I’m going to re-read the series once a week, and you guys get to come along for the ride!

This week, Hank McCoy stands trial for a crime he didn’t commit, but even he doesn’t believe it!

THE ISSUE ITSELF

Mutant X #6 has a cover date if March 1999, and has story and art by Howard Mackie, Cary Nord, and Andrew Pepoy.

Henry McCoy, aka the Brute, stands on trial, accused of murdering Man-Spider and Norman Osborne. Though Brute doesn’t recall the murders and is confused about his motives, Maddie says he did it, and he believes her, or is at least inclined to. Brute’s attorney Matt Murdock calls for a recess. While Havok is interviewed by Gwen Stacy about Brute’s trial and the risk of rising tensions between humans and mutants, Scotty has a vision of Hank in trouble. Meanwhile, Maddie and Fallen visit Brute in his cell, and strong arm him into keeping up the charade that he is the killer. Back in court, Matt calls a surprise witness: Man-Spider! The one killed last issue was in actuality a clone. While court is in session, the guards are attacked by a group of ninjas. A mysterious figure outside the courthouse is revealed to be Bullseye, who is here to kill Hank. A battle breaks out in the courtroom, but is interrupted when Brute steps out, his intellect seemingly restored. With his restored intelligence, Hank pleaded guilty for the murders, and requests the death penalty for his crimes.

After a fairly packed issue last time, this one retreads a little bit. We get more of Brute being confused and Maddie and Fallen being evil, solidifying that new status quo a bit more. We also get both Matt Murdock and Bullseye in the same story, even if they don’t interact or anything. Alex is officially past trusting Maddie at this point, setting up where things are going with the story. We also get a rollback on killing off Man-Spider with the clone reveal, which is on one hand a bit of a cop out, but on the other a rather brilliant parody of exactly how things go for Spidey. We also see the rumblings of Human-Mutant relations falling apart again, showing just how fragile that whole thing really is.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Brute continues to be my favorite cast member at this point, and while not a ton happens in this one, I do like his scenes a lot. Alex is also getting the hang of things a bit more here, which makes for more interesting storytelling.

I snagged this whole run from my usual comics stop, Cosmic Comix, so I want to give them a shout out here, because it was a pretty great find.