Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”
Chapter Forty-Five
1986
July, 1986 New Mutants Vol 1 Annual No. 2 by A. Davis, Glynis, Orzechowski, Claremont + Nocenti AND floppy No. 45 by Guice, Windsor-Smith, Baker, Glynis, Orzechowski, L. Biharis, Claremont + Nocenti
Mixtape Tracks: Tale of the Tongue by Peter Murphy & Superman by R.E.M.
Chapter 45, of “to me my ❌-Men,” provides a bookend of vibes from horror comedy and sobering horrors.
Previously on "to me my ❌-Men," we are still in the era of spinner racks, used book stores, and back issue bins, so transitions, time, and space are unique around these parts. We must not forget in this Multiverse...Central Park. And so we stayed local in NYC, after getting lost across the pond, in the past, on another Earth, having got bogged down in old country family drama via Betsy Braddock..but being back in Central Park, is not enough...it should be 1986. So the introduction of Bets and the reacquaintance with Ali seems not quite on time...or place!?!. Failing for a lifeline, we grasp onto more Mutants. Who last we saw, left a note for Maggie, and teleported through Limbo, to get to Scotland, to have a bar fight with a cult in order to save David from himself, the demon in his head named Jack.
The Alan Davis cover reaches for us on the bottom left of the cover...no wait...the sign points towards us, and they seem to be forcing their way on top of us towards our:
WILDWAYS
Well not Douglock...wait...are we Douglock!?! I thought we were Kitty Pryde? Is that not our POV?!
Pilling ontop of us are Darla (Bratpack...debuted Longshot No. 4), Butch (Bratpack), Sam (Mutant), Illyana (Mutant), Rahne (Mutant), Alfie (Bratpack), Berto (Mutants), Dani (Mutant), Amara (Mutant), and...Brian (Captain Britain Corp)!?!
Narrator AKA Chris Claremont: "Last Year."
“Chambeaux, Switzerland.”
Bets is in a Marvel🇺🇸 comic.
Claremont tells us she was a superhero, but this her past, and here she is skiing...blind.
She was blinded, but her telepathy allows her to know where she is going, but somehow none of this prevents, "her from being blinded."
This page is a treat...the effects and inking of Bets eyes are effecting.
Turn of the page is horrifying.
Bets is shattered into crystals, as her eye and Spiral's dance created a pathway for Mojo and Spiral to travel to Earth-616, and now they have her other eye...but her body bag is limp on the ground, and Spiral is playing with her new toy. Mojo wants her spine.
The game: put Bets back together again.
Page turn:
"Last Month"
Getting closer.
A document reads:
"Professor (with Charles crossed out...hurrah) Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Graymalkin Lane
Salem Center, New York"
HOT!
Hand written:
"SECRET HOME OF THE NEW MUTANTS BIG FAT HAIRY DEAL!! WHY DO WE DO THESE THINGS?!"
A sketch of tik tac toe turned into Warlock with a 🙂 hand...
...it is all crumpled by it's author...Doug.
Dani checks in with her classmate. He is in his feels, because he can't tell anyone outside this context all the incredible things going on in his life...because it sounds to...
Dani clues him into that they are dealing with that. She mentioned her recent self reflection (y'all remember when she left for home and came back), on her complex identity.
All "outcasts."
"Last week."
"Across the world..."
"...a new animated television series...makes it's debut."
"Wildways"
is front an central, in technicolor, on this page, with blue mono color scenes branching out:
Rahne
Brian and Meggan (recognizing Bets is a character)
Bratpack (still young...like last scene in Art and Ann's Longshot); Alfie, Butch, Darla
Mutants; Sam, Berto, Illyana, Dani, Amara, Warlock, and Doug
Frank Miller and Chris Claremont's Leong & Nga Coa Manh (last scene in their second appearance...our first...New Mutants No. 24 by Chris and Bill)
...on the screen are animated Bets, Spiral, and Mojo.
Turn the page:
"Last Night."
"Lower East Side"
"Alphabet City."
Wait that's less then a day and 50 blocks south away.
Stephen Hillenburg’s SpongeBob SquarePants
***SHBOOM!***
"**BETSY?!**"
BRIAN!?!?
He has followed us into this comic. He has his own, classic double page, Alan Davis spread...this time with his first Chris Claremont treatment since...since the punk scene started in the UK?!...'77!?!
Here Brian searches a squatters scene in search for his twin, propelled by the cartoon show I can only assume...and is horrified enough to cower in the shadows, asking for Mummy and Daddy...promising to be a good boy...as he is being scolded by...I have a guess...
Anyhoo...
"Last night."
still
"an hour's drive north" at the school...Berto calls the Wildways and like that Spiral and Mojo appear in the ❌-Men's kitchen...and then the three dance away.
"NOW"
Danger Room
Close enough.
Dani has Sam on a work out...he contorts awkwardly...but is physically ok..just an easily bruised ego.
They have all seen a reduction in ability since encountering He Who Shell Not Be Named.
Illyana is avoiding doing the dishes... sends them Limbo to have her critters do them...they come back as a plate setting from an Candlemass stage set.
Amara, reflective in her room, looks down at her classmates Douglock and...wait that's Berto?!
Everyone comes running as a tree has merged with Berto.
"later"
Maggie is MIA and Berto is dead...❌-Men...think ❌-Man is dead. Take a drink.
Doug is taking responsibility...Dani is calling it an accident.
Not sure why we do this. Let us have our feels.
And then...he turns it the Valkyrie in the room...as she tries to make him feel better...she should have had a death warning alarm...has a point there.
Doug goes to the body to process...and Warlock follows. And Warlock finds an error in the findings...his lifeglow as it was, was not the same as it was, previously...huh!?!...basically not the same Berto...'cause science.
"he's a fake."
Sam and Dani bust in on them...
Page turn:
Mojo is messing with Spiral's head a bit...it's horrific...but the worst part is they have now implanted two bionic eyes in Bets...and she is hella scary looking like this.
And now they have other toys to play with.
Rahne and Berto, Leong and Nga have joined, and the Bratpack...
They use Bets new eyes to age up these kids with laser eyes.
All growed up in new costumes, the twins are in all black, and Darla's in a brighter style...these three stand out...the rest are kinda bla, as far as, design goes.
Mojo anoints them all Bratpack.
The Mutants transport to Alphabet City, where we last saw Brian in fear...and they greated by Butch AKA Snitch...and then attacked by Nu Berto & Rahne...and then Darla AKA Jubilee (take note...very similar power set...and same co-creator...I already thought Darla was rad...this is hella rad)...then the Cao Manh twins de-age Amara (❌-Babies refinement moment)...Douglock escapes...but Illyana, Amara, Sam, and Dani are all aged up and given boring costumes (Dani's is proto-her-next-costume...a little on the nose).
Douglock find a deaged naked Brian and his helmet. The get into it, but eventually unite.
Somehow Amara is able to break free of the spell...and runs away...a younger self again...right into the hands of Alfie AKA Straight Arrow.
Amara is saved by Brian, as Douglock sneaks up on Mojo...who is now merged with or is Betsy.
Bets is to focused on her work...but by engaging electrically and with power...Douglock is treated to trauma that is total in its experiences.
They seem okay though...and Brian and Amara are still on the run.
Now when Douglock forms they are even more interconnected...and this is when the merged Bets/Mojo engages with them.
They are in Wildways...and Bets is on top of a carosel which features the rest of this cast as creatures you ride on it...even Brian and Amara now.
Bets feels very proto goblin queen...and proto Jim Lee's Psylocke.
She tries the same techno organic magic on Douglock...but Douglock rips out of the Centaur from everyone else is in...and attacks Bets...who shifts into Spiral, as a series of Dali inspired natural disasters happen...eventually....as the carrousel spins...Brian joins Douglock and they free their friends from the Spiral.
All is back to normal...but Bets is an seems like an astral prjection giant....and Spiral is on her heals...for a split second. She has he wicked smile and continues her plan. So Bets destroys it with her new laser eyes.
Bets wakes up naked with Doug...who has his pants and innocence.
Emotional...Dani finds them and calls the group over...exposing Bets and Doug to an awkward moment. But Warlock turns himself into s suit for Bets...saving Brian from something traumatic.
Brian checks in with his twin...who has elected to stay...and try and learn more about herself and shed being a victim of circumstance at the school.
Brian flys off.
Doug has a crush.
Bets cares.
Dani and Doug talk Douglock.
There is joy and hope here...for a moment…at…
…the School for Gifted Youngsters, the Mutants travel through a portal, Limbo, to the spring mixer at Salem Center High.
WE WERE ONLY FOOLIN’
And Kitty is there too!
Kitty and Maggie are getting to know each other better. Kitty also meets a nice kid, Larry.
There is some real jerks at this party.
They are threatening Larry with calling ❌-Factor on him.
Larry makes an anti-mutant joke to the wrong crowd. Kitty dumps his arse just as things were getting started.
Larry’s powers remind me of Artie.
Rahne, figures out he is a mutant.
The next morning, Rahne is about to tell them Larry is a mutant…when Maggie jumps in to let them know, he committed suicide.
The mutants work through it in the danger room.
Kitty phases through Larry’s house. Finds the sculpture his powers made of light. Of the Challenger. An interesting choice given our generation and the themes here. She torches it and it is ruined. Rahne and Kitty have the ❌-Factor note.
Kitty speaks at the manorial school assembly. It’s raw and real. About how she knew him best, not at all, and fear, a scarlet letter, and labels
Next: The 1st X-Men Event e v e r