The X-Men #57

Just as we saw with Jim Steranko saving the super-sized maize-filled stories/lines of Arnold Drake, Neal Adams's artwork goes a very long way in salvaging the lines of Roy Thomas. In his favor, though, for once Roy Thomas's dialogue/character befuddlements are less memorable than the overall flow of the issue. Aside from Roy Thomas's display of the women in the X-Universe as ineffective (why are Lorna's powers fading out? why can't Jean use her super-powered brain to search for one single brain pattern in the middle of the desert?), the only major character weirdness was Cyclops's mildly bigoted "camel-jockey" scene. Again Cyclops is portrayed as indecisive: first the peacemaker, then the vengeful attacker, then the restrained pugilist. The other weirdness is Iceman's over-the-top reaction to seeing Lorna's wrecked apartment. For a man of ice, he reacts rather heatedly. We get some more peeks into the life of the Living Pharaoh, an actual respected professor in Egypt, but why he returned to human form once Alex destroyed his temple is confusing, just like the Egyptian constabulary believing "well, I guess there must have been an ancient temple here a minute ago, and it must have been destroyed by you non-Egyptians" was a bit facile. Somehow, though, Neal Adams's artwork and the overall presentation of the main story overshadow these moments. The return of the Sentinels is a great idea, just as Thomas's resurrecting the anti-mutant feelings in the world (though it was nice for the X-Men when they weren't so feared and hated) is a great X-Universe direction to take - any direction would be good at this point. It is a little forced that a Sentinel just happens to be waiting for Alex in a large cave in the middle of the desert, but at least Alex has blonde hair now. The appearance of Bolivar Trask's son Larry is another great move by Mr. Thomas - finally, instead of just showing up his knowledge of Marvel history arcaneness, Roy progresses the Marvel Universe along in a dangerous, interesting way. Kudos, sir. Perhaps this is why you have such a reputation. Good job hanging in there.

Unfortunately, the issue does not end with the intense revelation of Larry Trask and the resurrected Sentinels: no, some former Marvel staffer named Linda Fite is allowed to do a brief precis of Jean Grey's powers. What we learn, sadly, is that even women around the Marvel staff offices did not take women seriously back in the day. True, we could tell this by the self-deprecating write-ups of Millie the Model every single month, but to have a woman summarize Jean's powers as good for huswifery and sexual provocativeness, well, maybe it's not so bad the '60s are over. Yes, Ms. Fite does say Jean can help in a fight, but it's mostly deflection, retreat, and the occasional "brain overpowering" (whatever that is). It's somewhat sad that the fans are putting more thought into the ontology of the X-Universe than the actual creative teams (as evidenced by some rather impressive letters in this issue). Time constraints are one thing, but to just inundate the market with flashy series with no substance or coherence isn't really great art, which is supposedly what Stan the Man says they are about at Marvel.