The important X-Men stories

As Kiel mentioned in Linko!, I had the privilege and pleasure of speaking with Kieron Gillen over on Marvel.com earlier this week about his upcoming tenure as writer of Uncanny X-Men among other things.

I’ve met Kieron a couple times now and spoken to him a few more; he’s a swell dude as well as a talented writer, and what’s more, a sharp fellow with some keen insights into comics that go beyond your average fanboy. In particular, both when we talked at New York Comic Con and during our interview, Kieron expounded on the importance of the X-Men being relevant not just as a top-line comic book, but as a reflection of societal trends, from race relations and prejudice to fanaticism and the obsession with celebrity.

It got me thinking how many things the X-Men franchise has been over the years; it’s been both a tremendous commercial success that has at times represented the excess of the comics industry, but also a franchise that holds up a mirror to the real world and tells important stories about those who have been outcast or disenfranchised, with mutants serving as stand-ins for racial minorities, homosexuals, etc., and it’s often been both things at once.

However, not every good X-Men story is necessarily an important one as far as that second half of the equation is concerned. In other words, an X-Men story does not necessarily need to have a deeper social meaning in order to be of high quality, but there’s no denying many of the best ones do.

But while the Dark Phoenix Saga is considered one of the best X-Men stories of all-time and has tremendous emotional resonance, the tale of a space deity taking over Cyclops’ girlfriend and becoming a star-eating menace before making the ultimate sacrifice doesn’t really carry with it a profound commentary on the issues of the day. Similarly, I love stuff like X-Cutioner’s Song or Messiah Complex, but those are really just fun action epics with lots of super-powered heroes and villains running around fighting, not allegories of any type.

That X-Men can do both types of stories well is a big reason it has had such sustained success.

Talking to Kieron did get me thinking about which X-Men tales really did speak to the social issues of their time, so I took a look back and came up with a few standouts I think speak to the power of both the franchise and the medium (I’m certainly not saying this is it as far as what should make this list, but that’s what the comments section is for).

AMONG US STALK…THE SENTINELS!
X-Men started out really as just another teen super hero book, with the slight caveat that all members of the team came about their powers naturally, as did most of their foes. Having not read all the early issues, I’m not sure exactly when the ideas of mutants representing minorities or Professor X and Magneto being the Martin Luther King and Malcolm X of the piece came about, but I’d say the original Sentinel trilogy from X-Men v1 #14-16 is a safe enough bet. Here you got the introduction of Bolivar Trask, the first in a long line of human bigots who would menace the X-Men over the years, as well as the Sentinels, the ominous killer robots who would come to symbolize the “final solution” to the mutant “problem.”

DEADLY GENESIS
Of course Giant-Size X-Men #1 is most noteworthy for the first appearances of Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus, the introduction of Wolverine into the X-Men, and the formation of what would become the team’s most popular incarnation, but it’s also quite remarkable when you break down what Len Wein and Dave Cockrum were doing. The all-new, all-different X-Men were the first comic book group I’m aware of where the cast boasted a lone Caucasian American male (Cyclops) surrounded by a virtual United Nations of heroes, including an African female and representatives from Russia, Germany, Japan, Ireland and Canada as well as a Native American. While the Legion of Super-Heroes may have had a crew made up of representatives from various fictional planets (where most people were still white), the X-Men struck a huge blow for diversity in comics in 1975.

GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS
The fifth volume in the Marvel Graphic Novel series features Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson’s markedly mature and edgy take on the lethal and terrifying combination of zealotry and racial prejudice. The very first sequence has two mutant children executed by the religiously-motivated Purifiers and found by a vengeance-swearing Magneto. Reverend William Stryker’s persecution of mutants and insistence that they are an abomination and blight on humanity definitely strikes a harsh but all-too-real chord when you think about all the wars and horror that have come about because of those who insist on twisting faith to their own sick ends. However, while the story is full of cringe-inducing moments, it is also uplifting in its way, with many humans refusing to indulge Stryker’s bigotry, their acceptance of Nightcrawler as a true hero, and Cyclops’ affirmation of Professor Xavier’s dream for peaceful coexistence between all races; even with the religious aspect stripped out, the framework of this story still made for a powerful and awesome movie with X2: X-Men United.

FATAL ATTRACTIONS
In the midst of this massive 90’s crossover, a momentous event occurred; I’m not talking about the return of Magneto or the temporary loss of Wolverine’s adamantium, but rather the defection of Colossus. After several years enduring numerous tragedies that left his entire family dead, the popular and peaceful X-Man lost faith in Xavier’s dream and opted to give Magneto’s more aggressive approach a try as a member of the Acolytes. It was the first time a noteworthy X-Men stalwart had openly decried the doctrine they followed, but reflected the very real world circumstances that often see civil rights activists embrace a harsher outlook out of frustration.

THE LEGACY VIRUS
Paralleling the AIDS epidemic, in the 90’s the writers of the X-Men titles concocted the Legacy Virus, a brutal disease that struck randomly at mutants and decimated several characters without regard for their being good or evil, beloved or obscure. Just as many heterosexuals decried AIDS (or GRID) as being a “homosexual disease” in its early stages when it seemed to afflict only that population, humanity in the Marvel Universe lashed out even more fiercely against mutants out of fear the Legacy Virus would spread to their ranks, which it eventually did when longtime supporting character Moira MacTaggert became afflicted. The story of the Legacy Virus stretched over several years and ended only when Colossus, back in the X-Men fold, seemingly sacrificed his life to activate the cure in a particularly poignant tale.

E IS FOR EXTINCTION
When Grant Morrison came on New X-Men in 2001, a clear line in the sand was drawn between what had become a storytelling structure even a diehard like me can admit was somewhat bloated by the end of the 90’s and a return to the relevant, hard-hitting stuff that first gained the franchise notoriety. I hated New X-Men at the time it was coming out, but have since been able to go back and really appreciate it both as a fan and somebody who appreciates the craft. Morrison’s very first storyline with Frank Quitely tossed in the game changer that the human race was going extinct and would be replaced by mutants entirely within a few generations. This very much drove home the point that mutants were the “other,” regarded by normal humanity with both fear and awe, now heightened by the idea they truly were the next step in evolution and possible their replacements; this certainly echoes the new century anxiety of white America that immigrants will take our jobs and neighborhoods, among other hot button topics. The remainder of Morrison’s run would continue to address ideas about how “normal” folks view those separate from them, exploring not only fear, but envy and reverence.

GIFTED
A lot happened in Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s opening salvo on Astonishing X-Men, from the introduction of Ord to the return of Colossus (man, that guy is in every big story), but perhaps lost among the loud stuff was Kavita Rao’s discovery a “cure” for mutants that would make them into normal humans. The agonizing of some Xavier Institute students and Beast in particular made for some of the story’s most heartfelt moment and certainly paralleled the struggle I’m sure many people young and old who may be in a racial or sexual minority feel at wondering what it would be like not to be different weighed against staying true to who they know themselves to be; a tricky but important debate that Whedon handled admirably.

A Few Thoughts on Dollhouse

To begin: Dollhouse is (or rather was) a weekly show about a bunch of pretty people ("dolls") who got their minds wiped and took on new identities each week in the service of a shady operation ("The Dollhouse") that essentially pimps them out both to solve problems and to be sex slaves or whatever. There's also a bunch of stuff about a shadier corporation running the shady operation, conspiracies galore, people who you thought were one thing turning out to be another (often dolls), the right to free will, sense of identity, self-awareness, the abuse of technology and so on and so forth, but I just gave you the bare essentials and you can dig deeper if you want here.

Also, it was a Joss Whedon show and also it aired on Fox in the Friday night death slot, so the fact that it lasted a season and a half regardless of quality is pretty much a miracle (because of the latter thing, not so much the former).

Well I'm here to tell you that getting cancelled midway into its second season may have been the best thing to ever happen to Dollhouse. I'm sure the various cast and crew who were employed by the show would take issue with that statement and I feel for them, but having just burned through the last half-dozen or so episodes in the span of a week or so and finding them to be awesome, I stand by my statement and will now attempt to explain why.

In its nascency (I'm sure I made that word up/spelled it wrong, whatever), I didn't really enjoy Dollhouse because it had the whole "new standalone adventure every week" thing that most new shows have and it really didn't work for me. Granted, both of Whedon's previous long-running TV series (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) embraced a similar concept in their respective first seasons before broadening their horizons after that, but I found it more grating with Dollhouse. On one hand, that's odd, since the core concept of Dollhouse would seem to make standalone episodes the way to go (it gives the writers a chance to create new characters each week and for the cast to play them and on this show it makes sense), but it didn't work for me.

Partly, I think my lack of early interest in Dollhouse when it used this format came down to star Eliza Dushku and the fact that it just didn't play to her strengths. I do think she's a solid actress who shows flashes of greatness now and again, and I also buy that she really really poured her heart and soul into this show (which she also produced), but I simply don't think she's the most versatile of performers. Dushku was amazing as Faith on Buffy because she had nearly an entire season to hone every tic of the character and really inhabit her; even in that one episode where Faith and Buffy switched bodies, she was kick ass as "Buffy" and showed she can play more than just a bad girl sex bomb. However, whether it's her look or her accent or that she's just so good at playing certain parts, it was tough to buy Dushku in a new persona every week as she never seemed to have time to acclimate properly and even harder to buy her as Echo in her passive doll state because it just seems so contrary to every part she is known for.

This is also one of the few cases where I think an incredibly strong supporting cast may have hurt the show more than helped, at least to start. As Victor, the only male doll on the show who really gets fleshed out, Enver Gjokaj may be the standout performer of the whole deal, as his default character is that of the square-jawed action hero, but he slips so easily into the persona of a weasely Russian mobster or British gentlemen or computer nerd sometimes literally one within seconds of the other it's incredible to behold. Essentially, he does what Dushku is supposed to do, but he does it way better, which only highlights that she's not doing it that well, dig? Dichen Lachman (seriously, these actors all have craaaazy names) as Sierra, the "other" female doll who gets significant screentime, isn't that far behind him in terms of adaptability and their improbably romance is one of the highlights of the entire series.

Besides those two, you've also got Fran Kranz being fucking hysterical as wunderkind scientist Topher Brink, Olivia Williams doing a brilliant hell-on-wheels routine as the Dollhouse's icy British head, Adelle DeWitt, plus Whedon repository players like Amy Acker, Alan Tudyk, Summer Glau and other coming in and giving blowaway turns every other week.

In short, you've got a show where the star is the least interesting character and you spend 40 minutes or so an episode wishing she would get off the screen so we can see what the supporting cast is up to.

However, to the credit of Dushku as well as Whedon and the writers, she stepped up her game big-time in season two and made Echo a character you not only cared about but rooted for. You bought her as the centerpiece of a tremendously entertaining ensemble rather than the weak link (even if I still would probably have rather watched a Victor-Topher buddy show given the choice).

This all gets back to my original point; when he kicked things off, I understand Whedon had some sort of glorious five-year plan for Dollhouse, meaning we likely would have seen the conspiracies and big picture stuff take a backseat in favor of a slowburn journey of self-exploration for Echo and friends.

This would have been a bad thing.

In season two, Dollhouse went quickly from being about the dilemma of the week to instead focusing hard and heavy on what the fuck was going on with this crazy ass big brother group who were able to swap out peoples' brains and went to town double-time on setting up mysteries, twists and some pretty great payoffs for questions that may have only existed for half a season or less, but seemed really fucking important, which is a testament to how good the show got.

Echo also stops being a malleable piece of putty who tries on new outfits every week and evolves into a capable action heroine trying to piece everything together, aka the type of character Eliza Dushku is very very good at playing. It also helped tremendously that in the early part of the season she was largely paired off with Tahmoh Penikett--playing FBI agent hunting the Dollhouse-turned-dude working to bring the Dollhouse down from within Paul Ballard--who is hardly a bad actor, but low key enough that he didn't overwhelm her energy and allowed Echo/Dushku to mature into a force who could hold her own in scenes with the rest of the cast as time went on.

The last five or so episodes of the series (I've yet to watch the finale, but as I understand it's basically a coda) are just slambang awesome, as we get a shitload of information dropped on us laying out pretty much the entire mythology of the show (some that was only really laid out for the first time a couple eps earlier) then get a huge reveal of the true Big Bad of the whole deal and an appropriately thrilling and awesome final battle--complete with casualties plus pretty much every significant character from earlier in the super arc at least putting in a cameo--to wind things down.

(To digress for a moment on the aforementioned Big Bad reveal, on a show that had more "this character is not what you thought" moments than probably any other I've ever seen, I have to say that every single one up to that one still rocked in large part because Whedon and company did such a great job making the original iterations seem so sincere. With the Big Bad, I started to have my suspicions the episode before, but it was such a well-done and gutsy turn that I still found myself hoping against it and ultimately enjoying it a lot)

In short, the last few episodes of Dollhouse gave a viewer who had been watching the show for any significant amount of time all they could asked for and then some. If anything, I wish maybe we could have seen more of how the cast evolved into a Buffy/Angel-esque super team near the end there, but again, sustaining that over multiple seasons would have been tough. Also, with Lost so fresh on my personal radar with it's awesomeness at times threatening to be overshadowed by the frustrating lack of answers it provides, Dollhouse and its "everything gets solved because we're going off the air" tack was kinda refreshing.

My final assessment of Dollhouse is that it was a show with a lot of potential that almost didn't see any of it met because of too much ambition and resultant wheel-spinning, but that was instead saved when impending cancellation forced it to have a distinct middle and end; I definitely recommend catching the whole thing on DVD as it's not a lot to sit through all told and I think you'll get a good return on your efforts.