THE UNCANNY

MUTANT X #9 (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!

Hot on the tail of the first annual, Havok goes underground!

THE ISSUE ITSELF

Mutant X #9 is cover dated June of 1999, and has Howard Mackie as writer, Mike Miller on pencils, and Andrew Pepoy on inks.

In light of the annual’s events, Havok is on the run.  He calls Elektra (still at the X-Mansion with Scotty) and lets her know that he was unable to take down Madelyn.  Elektra and Scotty are attacked by Sentinels at the mansion, at the same time that Havok is chased down by Sentinels in New York.  Havok flees, falling underground, where he’s greeted by Ben Grimm, Mole Man, Callisto, and the Morlocks.  Ben tells Havok of the Morlocks’ plan to launch a resistance, and asks Alex to join in.  Alex declines, citing his need to rescue Scotty.  Ben accompanies him to the surface, but they are attacked by the Five and a squadron of Sentinels.  Callisto reveals herself to be a traitor, having sold out the Morlocks’ location to Madelyn.  As the battle escalates, both sides are interrupted by the arrival of a new player: Magneto!

After the last couple of issues, this one kind of feels like filler.  There’s very little actual advancement of the plot, and most of the character direction is just recapping prior story beats.  Though the issue touts guest stars on the cover, most of them are little more than bit players, with only Alex and Ben getting any real focus.  In particular, Mole Man and Callisto seem rather unexplored in this universe, and their underground movement has a lot of untapped potential.  The mind controlled Six are also not given much to do this time around, mostly just acting as Maddie’s muscle.  At the end of the issue, not much ground has been gained by either side, but the arrival of Magneto does at least give the story some momentum.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

While I liked the last largely filler issue, this one didn’t do much for me.  The cover showed a lot of promise; I’m a sucker for a cool Giganto shot.  But the actual events in the issue are kind of without any weight.  Havok fighting the rest of the Six has become a little bit repetitive at this point.  Thankfully, the arrival of Magneto and the rest of the X-Men should give the story some cool new cameos at the very least.

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.