THE HUNGER

MUTANT X #13 (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 we get more Bloodstorm.  Apparently there were demands?  Okay, I’ve been reading the letters columns, so I actually know first hand that, yes, there were demands.  People were really obsessed with the most straightforward concept in the series, I guess.  Well, let’s see where this all leads in “The Hunger!”

THE ISSUE ITSELF

Mutant X #13 is actually not cover dated, which is a first for the series.  It looks like that was just an across the board thing for the Marvel line that month.  Were there a date printed on the cover, it would be October 1999.  It was written by Ben Raab, with pencils by Mike Miller, and inks by Saleem Crawford.  This marks the second time that we’ve gotten an issue of the series written by someone other than Howard Mackie, and the first time it’s been in the main sequence of the book.

Several years in the past of the main series, Kitty Pryde writes a note to Colossus, narrating as she prepares to face down and potentially slay Storm, recently turned vampire by Dracula.  Meanwhile, in a castle far away, Storm grapples with a hunger for blood.  She stumbles upon Forge, whom she does not yet know, tied up to be used as feast for the vampires.  Storm longs for death, but Forge tells her there may be other options.  Kitty tracks storm to the castle, while Storm and Forge escape, evading Dracula’s goons.  Kitty arrives and slays said goons, before setting her sights on Storm.  They battle and Kitty gains the upper hand, but is unable to deliver the killing blow, giving Storm the chance to feed on her.  Back at the X-Mansion, Colossus and Nightcrawler discuss the disappearance of Storm and Kitty, who have now been gone for five months.  Colossus reveals an engagement ring he intended for Kitty, before admitting that she is truly gone.

Admittedly, it’s a little tricky to piece together this issue’s relevance within the narrative.  It’s touted as the origin of Bloodstorm, but it doesn’t really feel that way, since she’s already a vampire at the start, and all the end really does is confirm that she’s a vampire, which we already knew from the start and the fact that she’s a vampire in the current time period of the book.  Exactly what this is the origin of is kind of iffy at best, and the ending is just…odd.  Like, I guess Storm is turning Kitty into a vampire too?  Obviously she’s not killing her, since we’ve seen Kitty in the present day.  But also, we know from seeing Kitty in the present day that she’s at the very least had her head messed with a bit.  So, nothing presented here is surprising or new, or anything we didn’t already know.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I gotta be honest, I just really didn’t care for this one.  The fascination with Bloodstorm continues to perplex me, and this story does nothing to combat that.  Kitty the Vampire Slayer thing is cool enough, and clearly they were getting some Buffy inspiration there(which is fitting, what with Buffy being Kitty inspired and all) but it also leaves me with a lot of questions.  Why is Kitty the one hunting Storm down, and not *any* other member of the team.  Why doesn’t she take Colossus, a guy who would be pretty handy in a fight against a vampire, with her?  And why do none of the other X-Men try to find her in the ensuing five months?  As the first issue post-Goblin Queen wrap-up, this is a very weak installment.  Hopefully, next issue will be a bit better.

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.