EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW… MUTANT X #20 (MARVEL COMICS) “In another place–in another life–Alex Summers led a team of mutants in a battle against oppression. His methods were extreme, his tactics questionable, but–in his soul–he knew that he...
EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW…
MUTANT X #20 (MARVEL COMICS)
“In another place–in another life–Alex Summers led a team of mutants in a battle against oppression. His methods were extreme, his tactics questionable, but–in his soul–he knew that he was fighting for the greater good.
Now that soul has been transferred to another world, and Summers, also known as Havok, has found himself living a lie, allied with a team of mutants who are sinister, parallel versions of his friends and family. It is to this dark, new place that Havok has come, where he stands as a man alone… a mutant alone. Alex Summers is Mutant X.
Fear him. Fear for him.”
25 years ago, Marvel Comics launched Mutant X, a Havok led X-spinoff. I recently came into a complete run of the series, and so now I’m going to re-read the series once a week, and you guys get to come along for the ride!
This week, Havok finds himself going all Inception, with an alternate world within an alternate world in “Everything You Thought You Knew…”
THE ISSUE ITSELF
Mutant X #20 is cover-dated June of 2000, and it has Howard Mackie as writer, Jabier Saltares, Tom Lyle, and Billy Patton as pencillers, and Andrew Pepoy, Cliff Rathburn, John Czop, and Jay Leisten as inkers.
Havok falls through the Nexus again, remembering his death once more (don’t worry, he remarks on how frequently this has been happening). He wakes up in a room with The Six, in their original line-up, Madelyn and Fallen included. The others don’t remember anything after the Sentinel blast that happened in issue #1. Havok thinks to himself about all the things that have happened in the last 20 issues, wondering what’s reality. He is descended on by Jean Grey. Jean tries to tell Alex something, but Madelyn attacks her, chasing Jean away. Alex is joined later by Xavier, who goes into Alex’s mind, showing Alex his past from this world. As Xavier delves into Alex’s mind, an apparition of Jean arrives, warning Alex not to listen to him. Xavier and Jean do battle, and Xavier takes the advantage. Suddenly the team are at Apocalypse’s citadel, where Xavier wants Alex and the others to kill Apocalypse. Jean appears again, and Xavier orders Alex to kill her. When Alex hesitates, Xavier begins to unravel, and reveals that he has created this false world to keep Alex trapped. Jean pulls Alex out, and he awakes in Apocalypse’s lair, where Apocalypse asks Alex to help him take down Xavier.
This issue has a premise that’s intriguing in concept, but not quite so in practice. The idea of Alex sort of “resetting” back to day one in this alternate reality feels like it should allow for more exploration than it actually does. Furthermore, the reveal that it’s Xavier causing the altered state leaves you questioning why exactly Xavier would trick Havok into thinking he’s in an altered version of this reality, as opposed to some version of his home reality. Instead, we get more of Havok stumbling through being confused again, with little growth for the other characters. Then he wakes up, and he’s apparently been with Jean and Apocalypse this whole time? Also, what about Jean working for Sinister?
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
While I do like the shift away from the very similar to the main reality depiction of Xavier from last issue, I’m not sure this one quite sells the turn to villain as well as it could. Again, I knew where it was headed, so I suppose that removes some of the surprise, but it felt a little unexciting here. I do like the heroic Apocalypse angle though, and I want to see where that goes.
I snagged this whole run from my usual comics stop, Cosmic Comix, so I want to give them a shout out here, because it was a pretty great find.