#Terry Shoemaker

[comicbookwomen]

[jasposeyblog]

My acquisition of Sun Boy sketch card by Terry Shoemaker

[sprockyeahlegion]

Highest Paid

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[the-gershomite]

X-Force #14 -September 1992- Marvel comics

"Payback!"

writer: Fabian Nicieza

guest pencil art: Terry Shoemaker

guest inks: Al Milgrom

letterer: Chris Eliopoulos

colorist: Kevin Tinsley

[coverpanelarchive]

X-Factor #55 (1990)

[splooosh]

GIANT

Terry Shoemaker

[watch-joey-collect]

[manicpixiedreamcrowley]

thinking about aziraphale and crowley, my “yes, and” improv comedy queens

[bamfdaddio]

X-Factor Abridged: 1986

X-Factor Investigations: for when you need a soapy covert-ops team of mutants that isn’t officially affiliated to the school. Perhaps the most fluid title in the X-Pantheon, they are nevertheless part of the X-Men’s long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Factor 1 - 7) - by Bob Layton, Louise Simonson and Jackson Guice, Keith Pollard, Joe Rubinstein, Mark Silvestri, Terry Shoemaker

X-Factor is what happens when somebody reads the sixties X-Men and thought: we need more of that! But soapier! Somebody really read Roy Thomas’ run and thought: this is the quality we should strive for. They keep trying to distract me from the mediocre plot with gratuitously naked Angel –  that keeps kind of working. 

One enjoyable thing is the weirdly queer undertones that were put into this first run. And I’m not just saying that because Warren is shirtless nearly every issue and Candy kicks us off with a thinly veiled gangbang joke within the first five pages of [X-Factor 1]

Roll Call

Cyclops - Scott Summers. Uncontrollable eye beams. Recently left the X-Men to raise his baby boy Nathan with his wife Madelyne Pryor in Alaska. Hold onto your butts, because we’re about to enter some heavy character derailment with this guy.

Jean Grey, officially Marvel Girl. Telepath, telekinetic, love of Scott’s life - before she died! It was a whole thing. I wonder how she joins the cast of this book…

Beast - Hank McCoy. Fuzzy, blue and acrobatic genius, back to his thesaurus swallowing ways. (Seriously, he instructs a villain to “orally extract embryonic fluid from a hen’s egg”. Not annoying at all.) Previously of the Defenders, currently looking for a job at a university.

Iceman - Bobby Drake. Subzero jokester. Previously of the Defenders, currently an accountant. My god, y’all are some boring dudes.

Angel - Warren Worthington III. Millionaire playboy with wings. Previously of the Defenders. Has the most boring superpower and personality, and yet still has the dubious honour of being the guy in this title I’d most like to fuck. This confession fills me with a deep yet vanilla shame. 

Madelyne Pryor, Scott’s wife, mother of his child. Also about to get derailed.

Candy Southern, Warren’s girlfriend. Likes swimming, shopping and getting railed, apparently.

Angel, who’s considering himself a washed-up superhero, is renovating his playboy mansion with his girlfriend, Candy Southern, when Reed Richards calls. Jean Grey - you know, who went Dark Phoenix and sacrificed herself on the dark side of moon - is somehow alive! Gasp! Shirtlessly, Warren boards his private plane and books it to New York City. (He is just such a relatable down-to-earth character.)

Angel briefly considers not calling Cyclops, because with Scott happily married in Alaska, Warren can finally make a move on Jean. I’d get mad that Warren disregards Candy Southern so casually, but ‘millionaire playboy’ has been part of his biography since forever. Scott, meanwhile, has married a harridan (allegedly):

I love how that baby just disappears in between panel 2 and 3. (X-Factor 1)

Getting upset that Cyclops is being a deadbeat dad? Good for her! Then minimizing the plight of the minority he belongs to and getting jealous of his dead wife? Nay, Maddie, nay. But hey, if we don’t make Mrs. Summers-Pryor a shrew ASAP, it doesn’t make sense for Scott to reconnect with Jean, so let’s throw in some shouting and yelling! And then, when Warren calls and Scott has to leave, she can throw in an ultimatum that if he leaves now, he doesn’t have to come back!

As sands through the hourglass, so are the mutants of our lives. 

Scott, of course, responds to Warren’s distress call, flies to New York and finds…

She looks pretty good for a dead bitch. (X-Factor 1)

So how is Jean alive? Well, the Avengers found a pod on the bottom of the Hudson Bay, from which Reed Richards extracted this Jean! Apparently, the cosmic entity of the Phoenix did not possess the actual Jean, but created a perfect copy of her and possessed that. That copy went and did the whole Phoenix Saga, while Jean lay dormant in the bay for the entire time.

Well, fuck that with a rake.

Imagine you’re Chris Claremont. You crafted the Phoenix Saga, but were told that Jean could not survive, because she genocided a planet of broccoli people. You rewrote your ending, so that Jean sacrificed itself. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it made the Phoenix Sage ever more poignant. And then editorial decided to piss all over that because they really really wanted the original five X-Men back and so they undid that beautiful ending by saying: “It was a clone all along” and, oh yeah, they also went ahead and assassinated the character of Cyclops. I can only imagine how steamed he was.

Why didn’t they just substitute Scott and Jean with Havok and Polaris? That way, Scott could have retired in Alaska with Maddy and Jean could have stayed dead. Ugh. UGH.

Oh, and somehow, Jean’s nap in the Hudson Bay got rid of her telepathic powers and she’s just  a full-on telekinetic now. Did I say ugh? Because UGH.

Anyway, Jean steps over her own miraculous resurrection right quick, points at the tv and newspaper and is all: “Look at this anti-mutant sentiment! Everybody hates us! We gotta do something! And we can’t return to the X-Men, because Magneto took over the school!” (So… you’re not even going to try and call your best friend, Ororo? Or was that relationship wiped out with your retcon-resurrection?) Warren agrees, something has to be done and then…

Time skip

We see that Beast is being rejected from his tenth interview at a university for being an obvious blue and furry mutant. (Sad!) Warren then recruits him for some new initiative and then gives Bobby a call:

Hilariously, it takes Iceman three mere weeks of being an accountant to say: fuck that (X-Factor 1)

Warren also picks up Cyclops, who has a beard of sorrow. He hasn’t talked to Jean or Madelyne in the past three weeks and apparently, that’s just how he rolls now. Whatever. Warren and Jean pitch their idea: X-Factor! They will pose as a group of mercenaries who hunt down mutants for a fee, while secretly helping these mutants in trouble! Warren will bankroll X-Factor, while Candy Southern will take care of his other business. They also introduce Cameron Hodge, Warren’s old college roommate who’s going to handle their PR. Everyone is on board, except Cyclops, who is still deeply embedded in paralysing angst. He hems and haws, not because this is a terrible idea rife with mistaken identities, but because he just doesn’t know what to do about his wife!

Fucking hell.

But then, their first job! In San Diego, a sailor, Rusty, is taken for a night on the town by his Captain, and then this happens:

So is Emma the Captain’s… girlfriend? Are they into threesomes? Is he her pimp? This relationship is weirdly unclear. (X-Factor 1)

I’m not a big fan of Rusty. Layton looked at the varied group of New Mutants that Claremont created and said: “I’ll have none of that. I’ll create a milquetoast dude with generic fire powers and call it a day.” The most interesting thing is that Rusty’s powers got triggered because he got sexually assaulted by a woman, but no writer will ever acknowledge that. Instead, it’s presented as Virgin Angst. 

Anyway, the captain, who’s a huge mutant-hater, calls X-Factor. They show up, snatch up a Rusty who’s freaking out and serve the captain a whopping bill for their services, which is a hilarious detail. The group is all: we could not have done this without Cyclops and his leadership skills and Scott is all: that sounds about right.

But what about Madelyne? Well…

I wonder what Carrie Bradshaw would have to say if you told her that your husband dumped you through a commercial that he made with the previous love of his life. (X-Factor 1)

I will mock this title a lot, but there are some things I like:

I like the pivot to X-Factor Investigations, giving this title a different spin than a regular X-Men title. I just wish they didn’t also pretend to be mutant-hunters.

Despite the throwback to the sixties, Marvel Girl has more agency and has a better use of her telekinesis. She’s one of the hard hitters now, as it should be.

There’s a throughline of anti-mutant sentiment, which pops up at every junction. It makes sense, considering that X-Factor is a lot more centered in NYC than the regular X-Men are.

The, eh, ridiculous amount of shirtless men. 

I wasn’t kidding: Warren is shirtless at least once an issue and, apparently, he has emotional heart-to-hearts with Scott wearing nothing but underwear and robes. It’s a wonder Scott can piece together a coherent sentence. (X-Factor 2)

What I really dislike is the obvious reverting to earlier times. The author revives the Scott/Warren/Jean triangle, even though that was done and dusted in the sixties. Jean is just a telekinetic, Beast is no longer blue and fuzzy… Actually, that last bit doesn’t randomly happen: there’s some plot involved. Beast runs into another throwback to the past, his old stuffy librarian girlfriend called Vera, except…

Sufferin’ Sappho! Vera also runs a store for left wing music and South American literature. Apparently, we’re not meant to read through the lines and suss out that she might be a lesbian.  (X-Factor 2)

Beast is kidnapped from Vera’s by a bio-chemist named Carl, who has a mutant son named Arthur. (Artie! Bless! <3) Artie is a mute who can read and telepathically project his thoughts into images. He’s also disturbingly pink and bald, in an ugly cute kind of way. Carl, his father, uses Artie to spy on Beast’s thoughts, who’s fixing Carl’s equations as a thought experiment. With Beast’s help, Carl can fix his envelope-pushing treatment. What’s that treatment? Well, Carl can reverse mutations! Or he thinks he can. And before unleashing that treatment on his son, he needs a guinea pig.

Yeah, that’s exactly how Beast loses his blues. But first, we have to open the issue on yet another… suggestive picture:

It’s not just me, right? You’re all seeing this? (X-Factor 3)

Beast usually doesn’t do it for me, but this picture is… Er. I know that the X-Men have a reputation for being horny, but it’s usually not as explicit and male-oriented as this.

ANYWAY. 

X-Factor find a totally bandaged Beast in the basement of the compound where Carl is hiding. So, yes, there’s this trope in soap operas where somebody is completely wrapped up in bandages after a horrific accident, all to have a big reveal later when those bandages are removed and… gasp! The person underneath is completely changed! (Usually, because they hired a new actor.) This trope was so corny they spoofed it on Ugly Betty, and this comic just plays it completely straight.

Ugh.

ANYWAY

The bandages come off and Beast is all hairless. Good golly Miss Molly! Look like he just lost his most recent mutation!

Carl the crazy bio-chemist was apparently not supposed to be having a secret lab in the basement of an anti-mutant hate group, so when X-Factor comes a-knockin’, the guards of the compound start shooting. Carl sort-of tragically gets shot and implores X-Factor to take care of his boy, Artie, before he expires. 

So yes, that’s the second stray X-Factor takes in. Make that three, if we count Artie’s kitty, Muffin.

I’ve known Artie and Muffin for only three panels, but if anything happens to them, I’ll kill every other character in this book. (X-Factor 3)

Damn, little orphan Artie gets a real art upgrade in the nineties. There, he’s just a cute pink chibi kid, but now he’s a patchy-haired, liver-spotted Roswell E.T. without the charming green skin. I guess being uggo he engenders more sympathy. Not that leaving a kid with X-Factor is a stellar idea: Scott can barely take care of his own.

Yeah, you being a deadbeat dad is directly caused by the uncontrollable eyebeams you have, even though you’ve got ruby glasses to contain them. Fuck off, terribly written Scott. (X-Factor 2)

What follows are some clunky stories where a so-called Alliance of Evil try and pull various nefarious things for their shady master. They’re honestly a bunch of losers and the only name you need to remember is Frenzy. She’s cool. She almost pulls off kidnapping Rusty – but, like, why would you ever kidnap that dude? He’s about as exciting as wonderbread. Especially interesting considering that their master is none other than… Apocalypse!

Yo, Apocalypse, you used to hire these bozos? Man, you were really strapped for lackeys in between Horsemen, weren’t you?

Top to bottom, that’s discount!Ant-Man, discount!Multiple Man, discount!Boom Boom and… well  Frenzy. She gets a pass. (X-Factor 5)

Oh, and this is the last of the porn-y panels, I swear, but like: come on, there is no heterosexual explanation for this:

Ironic, how the only canonically gay one is wearing the most. (X-Factor 5)

Warren! That’s your work out… well, outfit is too strong a word. Work out briefs? Jesus Christ. 

If I gave this writer any credit, I’d say that the focus on Warren’s perfectly chiseled body might be serving as a contrast as to what happens with Warren later, after the Mutant Massacre. But alas, after the one-panel introduction of Apocalypse, Bob Layton fucks off from this title and gives the reins over to Louise Simonson. (I think she’s the first female writer for our merry mutants who is here to stay, so yay! Sadly, all the pin-ups of Warren stop.) I wonder what made Marvel pull Layton off this book mid-story. Maybe the sales were disappointing? Maybe emulating the run that got this shit cancelled in the sixties didn’t turn out to be such a hot money-maker after all? I guess we’ll never know.

Simonson gets saddled with an unfortunate plotline where a mutant named Michael uses heroine to block his uncontrollable powers. (His powers is that he can jumpcharge mutants nearby, making them tap into their untapped potential.) Everyone keeps calling him a junkie, even the heroes - like, Cyclops? Maybe a little sympathy for this dude? No? Anyway, Apocalypse is obviously interested in anyone that unlock anyone’s full genetic potential, and uses the guy’s girlfriend as leverage.

I’m not a huge fan of Simonson - while she’s leagues better than Bob Layton, characters still tend to make decisions for DRAMA instead of common sense - but she does bang out a few amazing plots and she’s created or molded a few great characters. Her characterization of Apocalypse is immediately spot on: 

Like Magneto, Apocalypse is a natural born drama queen. It helps to imagine all his hammy speeches in the voice he got in X-Men: the Animated Series. (X-Factor 6)

She also immediately clocks Warren’s greatest superpower: his wealth and his white privilege. Like, X-Factor accidentally destroys a residential home and Warren’s all:

Where did he keep that wad of cash? Should I be jealous of it? (X-Factor 6)

My god. This title has me simping for Warren. It truly is a barren wasteland if this is the character I'm most into.

In other tragic news, both Michael and his girlfriend perish while the Alliance and Apocalypse battle X-Factor. Sad. 

Because X-Factor arrived at the scene as mutant hunters and then changed into quick drag into mutant heroes, the Alliance suspects they are related. When reporters come to televise this whole mess – Michael’s house was destroyed – the anti-mutant X-Factor are linked to the pro-mutant ‘X-Terminators’ and the X-Factor compound immediately becomes the staging ground for a protest between pro- and anti-mutant people. 

Oh hey, it’s Trish Tilby reporting for duty! She’s like the X-Men’s Gale Weathers.

Anyway, Scott still can’t spit it out, even though he inadvertently calls Jean Maddie. Fuck, he really is his daughter’s father, isn’t he? And just when he finally has the backbone to confess he is married, Jean figures it out all on her own! She’s big mad. (Well, at least that makes sense. I’d also be mad if I was trapped in a clichéd soap opera plot.)

We end this plodding run on a B-plot that involves unhoused mutants living in a radioactive dump which is somehow also near New York. I know the Big Apple was bad in the eighties and I’ve also seen radioactive goop in Halloween: Freddy Takes Manhattan, so maybe this was just a thing back then so let’s not worry about it!

Anyway, Rusty meets a Morlock! A pretty Morlock, so we know she’ll be important. Sort of. Rusty and Skids don’t make it out of the nineties. (They don’t die, they’re just… narratively forgotten. A fate worse than death.) 

It’s hard to be a more boring character than Rusty, but Skids gives him a run for his money. (X-Factor 7)

Well, at least Skids has great outfits, but soon even that position will be usurped by Boom-Boom. Them’s the slip-slidey breaks, Skids.

Skids comes just in time to introduce the Morlocks to this title, because, well, we’ve got a big event coming up. During that event is actually when this title starts to gets some of its sea legs: it’ll spread its wings! So to speak. Poor Warren. Anyway, check back for the Mutant Massacre. (The first one.)

Best new character: Frenzy!

Most audacious retcon: It’s the worst! Not the whole Phoenix-cloned-Jean-and-took-her-place debacle. The fact that we never see Artie’s cat Muffin again!

What to read: Please don’t.

[comicbookwomen]

Terry Shoemaker

[jasposeyblog]

My acquisition of Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl sketch card by Terry Shoemaker

[sprockyeahlegion]

tales

[splicejunction]

one of these days I’m going to be able to read xforce #14 without clapping and cheering and punching the air that issue has everything it has rictors triumphant return and his beautiful beautiful long hair and gay little scarf it has the domino/vanessa reveal its written entirely by fabian nicieza and has beautiful terry shoemaker pencils and of course it has “no honor in running like dogs” “no honor in winding up behind bars either” but we all know about that one thanks to my hit fanfiction extraction point

[knightoftableround]

hihi!!! im knightoftableround or aspen!! i go by she/they and im bisexual!!

midwife. cobbler. shoemaker.

i post a lot about: good omens, doctor who, and lisa frankenstein!!!!!!

i do not support neil gaiman. i believe in continuing good omens in terry pratchetts name.

im really good at reblogging

𐙚 letterboxd, ao3, spotify, pinterest, bluesky 𐙚

[escapethemojoverse]

Episode 29: New Mutants Marathon Part 7 (Days of Future Present and New Mutants 93 and 94)

New Year, New Me, New You, New Mutants hits a brick wall of lore as we dive deep into the Days of Future Present, or rather, the Days of Future Past dives deep into us? It's complicated. All we know is that Franklin Richards is a weirdo.

New Mutants Created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod

Fantastic Four Annual #23 “When Franklin Comes Marchin Home” Written by Walt Simonson Penciled by Butch Guice, Inked by Geof Isherwood

X-Factor Annual #5 Written by Louise Simonson, Pencilled by Jon Bogdanove, Inked by Al Milgrom, Colored by Brad Vancata, Lettered by Joe Rosen

New Mutants Annual #6 Written by Louise Simonson, Pencilled by Terry Shoemaker and Chris Wozniak, Inked by Harry Candelario, Al Milgrom, Art Thibert, and Scott Williams, Colored by Brad Vancata, Lettered by Joe Rosen with a Cover by Rob Liefeld

X-Men Annual 14 Written by Chris Claremont, Pencilled by Art Adams and Mark Heike, Inked by Dan Green, Geof Isherwood, Al Milgrom, Art Thibert, and Bob Wiacek, Colored by Brad Vancata and Nel Yomtov, Lettered by Kevin Cunningham, Michael Heisler, and Tom Orzechowski

New Mutants 93-94 Written by Louise Simonson, Penciled by Rob Liefeld, Inked by Hilary Barta and Todd Mcfarlane, Colored by Brad Vancata, Lettered by Joe Rosen

If you have a comment or question you can email us @Mojoversepod@gmail.com 

Logo by Emily Kardamis who can be found on Instagram @corruptedgem or on Patreon at Patreon.com/corruptedgem

Our theme song is by Megan Lenius.