A WORLD GONE MAD

MUTANT X ’99 ANNUAL (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!

In the book’s first annual, Madelyn continues to vie for power, as Havok tries to put together his own group of Allies to put a stop to her machinations.

THE ISSUE ITSELF

The Mutant X ’99 Annual is cover dated May of 1999, and has a story by Jay Faerber, pencils by Paschalis Ferry, and inks by Andrew Pepoy and Paschalis Ferry. This marks the first, and as far as I know only, time that Howard Mackie isn’t writer for this book. Presumably, he wasn’t up for two issues in the same month and handed this one off.

Nick Fury and SHIELD arrive in a swamp town in Florida, having been officially reinstated by the Madelyn-controlled US government. Sentinels run rampant in New York, searching for Mutants. Havok is pulled out of the Hudson and awakens in the remains of Avengers Mansion, where he is looked after by Stingray and Yellowjacket, the team’s only surviving members. They lament that Bruce Banner has finally cured himself of the Hulk, and call for backup in the form of a super gamma powered Doc Samson. They capture Brute, who reveals to them that Madelyn and her mind-controlled heroes are working with SHIELD to find the Nexus. In Washington DC, a Sentinel attack on an innocent mutant is thwarted by Vendetta and Firestar. They decide to work together, and Vendetta pays President Kelly a visit, revealing he knows Kelly is under the Goblin Queen’s control. Back at the Swamp, Madelyn is confronted by Doctor Strange, who does battle with the Six. When Bloodstorm attempts to suck his blood, Strange reveals himself to be Man-Thing. Havok and the Avengers arrive to assist, and Havok is forced to destroy the Nexus to keep Madelyn from getting its power. Havok christens the new team “the Defenders” and departs. At a bar two nights later, a TV broadcast reveals that President Kelly has stepped down, and has named Reed Richards as his successor.

This story takes sort of a hard veer left with the narrative. We last saw Alex, in civilian clothes, flung out a window by Maddie, but this issue picks up with him in full uniform, having been pulled out of the river by Stingray. There are blanks that you can fill in without too much trouble, but it still has the “did I miss an issue?” feel that’s happened a few times in the last batch of issues. The guest stars this issue are an interesting bunch. I really dug the Man-Thing reveal on Strange, especially with his ties to the Nexus, and I was also quite intrigued by Firestar and Vendetta, though they’re not really explored too much.  We don’t even find out who Vendetta’s main universe counterpart is.  Firestar’s affectionate references to him as “Vee” gave me Justice/Vance Astrovik vibes, but that’s probably just my love of the Busiek/Perez Avengers coloring my opinion.  As per usual, there’s a contingent that thinks he’s Deadpool, which is fair too, I suppose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t dislike this issue, but it also was very out of nowhere.  Not having the regular writer involved probably contributes to that, and its definitely a self-contained sort of thing that’s going on.  I do like the continued focus on odd-ball characters, especially as we go deeper into the lore of the alternate universe.

This issue was the one and only issue from the run that wasn’t in the huge batch I bought from Cosmic Comix.  Instead, it was purchased for me as a birthday present by Max, who was unable to live in a world where I didn’t have the full run, and quickly sought to fix the problem.