MORE EGGS IN WEAPON X-MEN #5
Part Two of Two
Picking up where we left off last time, let’s jump back into the magic and the mayhem that is WEAPON X-MEN #5…
PAGE 13: Okay, here's where we get into something that I personally derived a ton of joy out of: the Retcon (which, for anyone who doesn’t know, is short for "retroactive continuity" -- changing or altering the details or the meaning of a pre-existing event, often well after the fact). The one thing about the original Uncanny X-Men #95 that always kinda bugged me was the randomness of dealing with the Doomsmith System (which Count Nefaria had activated for added insurance against the good guys). As you can see, there's a very deus ex machina aspect to the manner in which the Doomsmith is deactivated.
Very random, to say the least. So, since even Claremont himself avoided massaging this particular plot detail in Classic X-Men #3, I figured it was fair game.
So, of course, I just had Deadpool deal with it, almost as an afterthought. But it worked so perfectly, I just couldn’t resist.
PAGE 14, PANELS 4-5: This is as heavy as it gets, folks. The moment of truth for Thunderbird, as we represent the famous scene from -- yup, you guessed it -- Uncanny X-Men #95…
What I really like about this is just how close we stayed to the original scene. That, and Thunderbird’s “Butt out, baldy!”
PAGE 18, PANEL 1: Now that the story has us back in the present day, it’s time for an admittedly indulgent callback to my own work, once again referencing my run on the monthly Cable series. In this case, the callback happens to be a pretty obscure one: the Babel Diner (located in Hell’s Kitchen) that Ladronn and I introduced way back in Cable #54, published way back in early 1998…
In fact, I don’t recall specifying this location in my original script for that issue -- nothing much beyond Cable entering “a typical Manhattan diner”. It was Ladronn who invented the name and the look of the diner, instantly giving it much more character within the story, providing a setting we would return to many times over the course of our run.
PAGE 20, PANEL 1: Okay… this one is a little tough to write about, mainly because it represents what I feel is a missed opportunity. And I absolutely hate missed opportunities.
One thing about WEAPON X-MEN that seemed to annoy some readers -- back when the series was first announced -- was seeing Thunderbird back in his original costume. Because, just a few years ago, hot on the heels of his Krakoan resurrection, Thunderbird was given a new costume…
… not a bad costume, by any stretch. But, for me personally, no new costume was going to hold a candle to any costume designed by the late, great Dave Cockrum (the artist who designed the majority of the “all-new, all-different” X-Men that famously debuted in Giant-Size X-Men #1, published in 1975). Cockrum was arguably the greatest designer of superhero costumes ever, certainly the greatest of the 1970’s. And Thunderbird’s original costume -- its basic design, anyway -- was an absolute banger. That’s why it was brought back in the late 1980’s as the chosen costume for Warpath (Thunderbird’s younger brother and future member of X-Force). And now putting the character alongside icons like Wolverine and Deadpool… Thunderbird had to look like he belonged there. He himself had to look as iconic as possible.
Not to mention, as we see in this issue, there was a specific story reason why Thunderbird was back in his original threads. His entire plan hinged on his ability to fool his fellow X-Men into thinking that he was, in fact, the same Thunderbird that died in the climax of Uncanny X-Men #95. It only made logical sense for him to wear the same uniform.
However, I was certainly aware that the new costume -- especially its new color scheme -- held some cultural significance for the character. This point was made crystal clear in a letter (written by Thunderbird) presented in a one-shot written by Steve Orlando and Nyla Rose that did a great job reconnecting the character to his specific Native American background. Quoting from said letter…
“To me and a lot of my people, the native people I’m talking about here, turquoise means strength and skill, power and invincibility -- all coming from within.
So after everywhere I’ve been, where I come from’s more important to me than ever. That’s where my real strength comes from, and that’s why I’m wearing the Turquoise.”
So, now that Thunderbird had resolved his inner conflict and returned to the present with some renewed purpose, the story reason I had given him for wearing his original costume was no longer as relevant to the character. He had evolved (somewhat). He could now move forward. I cleared the idea to alter Thunderbird’s costume -- explaining that it would hopefully be a happy medium between Cockrum classic and the modern, cultural consistency that some newer readers had responded positively to -- with editor Tom Brevoort, and he agreed that it made a certain amount of sense.
It was to debut on this final page of this issue. You can see that artists ChrisCross and Mark Morales did their part, removing the sleeve fringes and making the blue bits black (the same way the black areas of Spider-Man’s classic, Ditko-designed costume would read as blue highlights). But I had further ideas to incorporate the Turquoise of the previous costume into this one. The best of both worlds, I thought.
Unfortunately, the colorist never got the new color note, and by the time I saw the colored page -- and tried to correct what got missed -- apparently it was too late to make any further changes and the book had to go to press.
In any case, here’s a very rough version of what the new Thunderbird costume -- meant to make its first appearance on this very page -- was supposed to look like (this is colored from earlier art in the issue, to better show off what I was going for)…
… so you get the idea. I dunno. I thought it would’ve worked.
So that’s it. Like I said last time, I’m eventually going to get into my overall thoughts on the fate of WEAPON X-MEN -- and why it ended the way it did -- in a future newsletter. This one wasn’t the time or the place.
But here’s a little tease… it had a lot less to do with sales than you think.
See you next time…
Joe Casey
USA
Great little run.
I’ve been missing the book — as in mourning the cancellation — since the bad news was announced.
Still wondering why the title didn’t get at least ten issues — I’ll presume first issue sales were *that* bad. But I’m okay not knowing… Too busy crying to care anyway…
Always interested in reading the why's of the decisions that go into making the choices that ended in the page. Once thing though, the issue that a lot of readers had, was less to do with Thunderbird getting a new costume, and more to the fact that the original design contained some very problematic imagery that was common on NA characters in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, that unfortunately came from racist depictions of NA in media, especially Hollywood. The long hair/headband combo, for example, has nothing to do with Apache or NA culture, but comes from Hollywood depiction of NA in movies, where most of the actors hired were not NA but Italian Americans. Because all of these actors had short hair at the time, they were usually given wigs and the headband was there to hold those wigs in place. The tussles are also another aspect that has less to do with native cultures and more with European settlers that brought them from Europe. And of course, the biggest issue was always the Thunderbird name/i.agery itself, that is a deity from the Pacific Northwest tribes and have nothing to do with Apache beliefs and culture.