Guest Post
If there’s one thing I love in life, it’s checklists. But when it comes to comics, their serial nature tends to clash with the finite simplicity of a title, an issue number and a check box. So, when I decided to start collecting comics again, I set my sights on a series no longer being printed by the House of Ideas Mutant X.
No…not that crappy live-action TV show. We’re talking about the series starring Alex Summers, a.k.a. Havok, the lesser-known brother of twice-adulterous boy scout Cyclops of X-Men fame.
At the climactic end of X-Factor 149, Havok was seemingly blown to bits by a time/space distortion device. That’s where Mutant X picks up, showing a disembodied Havok floating against a star field, saying he remembers dying.
Turns out Havok’s consciousness was transferred into an alternate reality where he leads his dream team of mutant heroes called The Six. This ragtag team is made up of heroes we all recognize, but with some subtle differences (this is an alternate reality). Madelyne Pryor is alive and well, having married Havok. They have a son named Scotty, named after Havok’s dead brother. Ororo Munroe took on the code name Bloodstorm, after being turned into a vampire by Dracula. Iceman’s powers are still out of whack after being messed with by Loki, locking him in his icy form. Dr. McCoy just couldn’t leave well enough alone and kept experimenting on himself, turning him into the Brute, a green monstrous being with the mind of a seven year old. The roster is rounded out by Warren Worthington III, now going by the Fallen, who was changed into Death but, in lieu of metal wings, he got bat-like ones and the power to breathe fire.
The first seven issues show Havok trying to adjust to the fact he’s married, has a son and a past he has no idea about. In the second issue we learn he had an affair with Sue Richards! The main storyline from these seven books revolve around Madelyn becoming the Goblin Queen. She does some mean things, like killing Spiderman (who was really a clone), pinning it on the Brute and having him executed. But the real fun comes in how Howard Mackie has reimagined some of our favorite heroes. Spiderman with six arms, a feral Wolverine running around Canada, the Fantastic Four markedly less fantastic, Havok the fearless leader and his goody two-shoes brother DEAD. And that’s why I love this book!
This series starts off running, throwing the reader into a world that is strangely similar, but enjoyably different. Some of the revisions are predictable, like the Goblin Queen/Madelyn thing, but the book has fun with the premise. I just hope it doesn’t devolve into a long string of cameos, each one trying to say ‘Look how inventive I am.’
All told, it’s just plain fun.