Ruffled Feathers

Angel's decision to accompany Beast and Iceman in Defenders #125 turned the non-team into a partial revival of the original X-Men. And that's exactly what Angel wanted.

Before joining the New Defenders, Angel tried renewing his involvement with the mutant team. Yet beginning with X-Men #137, the high-flying Angel was uncharacteristically careless and klutzy when working alongside the "new" X-Men who largely replaced the original team in #94.

Though initially depicted as out of practice, that wasn't the full story. Rather, any beginner's mistakes on Angel's part resulted from him feeling ill-at-ease among the reconfigured team. A disapproving attitude toward Wolverine, and shock that the X-Men would tolerate anyone with such homicidal tendencies within their ranks, led Angel to again fly the coup in #148. Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters no longer felt like home.

The above image comes from from Uncanny X-Men #148 (August 1981).

Recollections

In the five years since I started this blog, this is the first time I've felt prompted to mention Free Comic Book Day. Available Saturday, May 4, 2013, one of this year's titles is a sampling of work by authors Jonathan Kellerman and Louis L'Amour. The free offering brings back a memory from my early years reading comics.

While growing up, I occasionally perused a secondhand bookstore in my neighborhood that also sold back issues of comic books. One summer around the time I was in junior high, the owner of the shop started up a conversation with me by saying I looked like someone who spent a lot of time at the library. He then asked if I would be willing to do some research for him by reading through the neighborhood library's microfiche catalog and writing down every entry for Louis L'Amour. The shop owner was a fan of L'Amour's westerns and said he would pay me for the legwork.

In all honesty, I actually did like going to the library on my own. But I felt self-conscious that I came across that way. So even though I had the time, I declined the offer. In retrospect, I wish I had said yes.

Anatomy Lessons

Reading comics in my formative years, two issues of the Defenders particularly drew my attention to the body types of the characters. This image of Valkyrie, Hellcat, and Red Guardian from the closing page of Defenders #44 was the first time I noticed different breast sizes among super-heroines.

It goes without saying that Hulk is more muscular than the average hero. But I remember thinking how his super-developed torso on the cover of Defenders #87 looked like a face. Both of these examples invariably say more about my age at the time I first read these issues than the artwork itself.

Belonging

The most moving, truly unique story of the year! So said a cover blurb on Marvel Team-Up #119. The issue itself paired Spider-Man with Gargoyle in a tale about aging and mortality. Gargoyle came to accept that, even in the body of a demon, he could do good in the world.

By this point, Marvel Team-Up had become supplemental reading for fans of the Defenders. The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man had co-starred in recent issues with Valkyrie (#116), Devil-Slayer (#111), and Nighthawk (#101).

In spite of his adventures with various Defenders, the web-slinger explained to Gargoyle why he himself didn't belong in the non-team (#119).

Spider-Man: Whipping across the dimensions--fighting the Enchantress and her winged beasties--might be right up the Defenders' alley--but I've always been the down-to-earth sort myself!

Marvel Team-Up. Vol. 1. No. 119. July 1982. "Time, Run Like a Freight Train …" J.M. DeMatteis (scripted), Kerry Gammill (penciler), Mike Esposito (inker), Jim Novak (letterer), Bob Sharen (colorist), Tom DeFalco (editor), Jim Shooter (chief). That same month, Spider-Man guest-starred in Defenders #109 (July 1982), with his head featured in the cover corner that issue.

Kangaroo Court

When a special tribunal of the International Court of Justice charged Magneto with crimes against humanity in Uncanny X-Men #200, the scope of the legal proceedings hinged on the time Mutant Alpha reverted the master of magnetism from an adult to an infant (Defenders #16).

Prosecuting the case against Magneto was Sir James Jaspers, attorney-general of England. Leading the defense, Gabrielle Haller argued to strike all criminal counts that happened prior to that incident with Mutant Alpha.

Gabrielle Haller: As I was saying -- at that time, Magneto was reduced to infancy, returned to a state of grace. His life can be said to have begun again. The man that was, at that moment, ceased to exist. In effect. he died. Which is, of course, the ultimate penalty for any crime.

James Jaspers: Objection! This is the most preposterous perversion--!

Building her defense, Gabrielle Haller noted that Magneto was an adolescent during his internment at a Nazi concentration camp. Yet, decades later, medical testimony would now place the mutant criminal in his early 30s instead of his much older chronological age.

James Jaspers: That's irrelevant! He committed those crimes, regardless of his age!

After a long deliberation, the court found in favor of the defense, restricting the indictment to those crimes committed after Magneto's "resurrection" (the court's term, not mine).

I, on the other hand, would have sided with the prosecution. For starters, Magneto did not die at the hands of Mutant Alpha. And once restored to physical prime through the actions of Eric the Red (X-Men #104), Magneto retained his full memories and mental faculties. His biological age may have altered back and forth, but he was the same person as before.

The Uncanny X-Men. Vol. 1. No. 200. December 1985. "The Trial of Magneto!" Chris Claremont (writer), John Romita Jr. & Dan Green (artists), Glynis Oliver (colorist), Tom Orzechowski (letterer), Ann Nocenti (editor), Jim Shooter (editor in chief).