Fallen Angels #1-8 (April – November 1987)
Written by Jo Duffy
Penciled by Kerry Gammill (#1-2, 4), Marie Severin (#3), Joe Staton (#5-8)
Inked by Tom Palmer (#1-3), Val Mayerik (#4-7), Tony DeZuniga (#8)
Coloured by Petra Scotese
Spoilers (from thirty-five years ago)
In 1987, I would have bought any comic that involved the X-Men, or any of their spin-off titles like New Mutants and X-Factor. The glory days of Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson were in full effect, so seeing a new miniseries that prominently featured Sunspot and Warlock, two of my favourite New Mutants, was pretty exciting.
I remember seeing ads and articles about this series in Marvel Age, and I was intrigued at the idea of Bobby and Warlock forming the core of a new team of oddballs. I was vaguely familiar with writer Jo Duffy from her Star Wars work, and knew Kerry Gammill as one of those artists who turned up all over the place.
I don’t remember a lot from this book, other than that it ended up being pretty weird (there are two mutant lobsters in it that became members of the team). Since the name was recently used again in the first wave of Krakoa books, and since Sunspot has been used a lot lately in X-Men Red, I thought it might be a good time to revisit this oddball series, and see how it holds up.
Let’s track who turned up in the title:
Fallen Angels
- Sunspot (Roberto DaCosta; #1-8)
- Warlock (#1-8)
- Siryn (Theresa Cassidy; #1-8)
- Multiple Man (Jamie Madrox; #1-8)
- Chance (#1-8)
- Ariel (#2-8)
- Gomi (#2-8)
- Bill (green lobster; #2-8)
- Don (blue lobster; #2-5)
- Vanisher (#2-8)
- Boom Boom (Tabitha; #3-8)
- Moon Boy (#4-8)
- Devil Dinosaur (#4-8)
Villains
- Unipar (Coconut Grove; #6-8)
Guest Stars
- Cannonball (Sam Guthrie, New Mutants; #1)
- Magik (Illyana Rasputin, New Mutants; #1)
- Cypher (Doug Ramsey, New Mutants; #1)
- Wolfsbahne (Rahne Sinclair, New Mutants; #1)
- Magma (Amara Aquila, New Mutants; #1)
- Mirage (Dani Moonstar, New Mutants; #1)
- Magneto (Magnus, headmaster, Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters; #1-2)
- Karma (Xi’an Coy Manh, New Mutants; #1)
- Iceman (Bobby Drake, X-Factor; #3)
- Beast (Hank McCoy, X-Factor; #3)
Supporting Characters
- Moira MacTaggert (#1-2)
Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:
- The New Mutants are playing a game of soccer on the grounds of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Roberto DaCosta (Sunspot) is on one team, and Sam Guthrie (Cannonball) is on the other. Bobby is narrating this part of the issue, thinking, as he plays, about how much soccer always meant to him. When Illyana (Magik) passes him the ball, he scores on Doug (Cypher) and boasts. Rahne (Wolfsbane) watches the game with Warlock, the strange alien that the New Mutants have added to their ranks. The school’s headmaster, Magnus, watches the team play. This story is taking place in the time when Xavier left Magneto in charge of the school as a path to redemption. Magnus is not sure how to properly run the school, and picks up the phone to call Moira MacTaggert for help. Moira’s in her lab on Muir Island, watching with Multiple Man as Siryn practices her powers. She asks them to be quiet so she can take Magneto’s call. He explains that he doesn’t understand how to run the academic part of the school, or to administer it, and he worries that the team is suffering from various forms of trauma (as he talks, he pulls one of the student’s file out of the filing cabinet using his magnetism, I guess pulling it by whatever staples might be in it). Bobby is now in goal, and Sam approaches and takes a shot. Bobby stops the ball, but Sam keeps running, pushing into him and smacking his head against the frame of the net. Sam falls on Bobby, who gets angry, activates his Sunspot powers, and pushes Sam off of him. Sam flies into a tree, shocking everyone when he doesn’t immediately move. The whole team rushes to him, and they all look at Bobby as if he purposely wanted to hurt Sam. Bobby is hurt and upset, and storms off as Magneto and Xi’an (Karma) rush over. Sam wakes up, and Magnus says they’ll go into town to have him looked at by a doctor. Bobby is in his room, looking through his photo album and feeling very out of place – his father has joined the Hellfire Club, and he doesn’t trust him. His mother has never shown him much interest, so he feels he can’t turn to her. Missing Professor Xavier (who, let’s face it, wasn’t the greatest person to turn to for counsel), he enter’s Magneto’s office hoping to talk to him. He sees his file on the desk, and reads Xavier’s comments that Bobby could become arrogant and evil like his father. At the doctor’s office, Sam learns that he has a concussion, and unlike everyone else, doesn’t blame Bobby for what happened. In Scotland, Moira, Theresa, and Jamie prepare to travel to the US. The New Mutants return home and find Bobby gone. He’s left a note saying that he doesn’t feel like he belongs on the team anymore, and that he thinks Xavier felt the same way. Magnus sends the kids to their rooms to think about how they pushed Bobby away. Warlock decides he should go looking for Bobby, and turns into a cartoon airplane and flies towards Manhattan. The next day, Bobby is walking through the streets of Manhattan, having spent the night in the bus station, wishing he had money for food. A young person watches him, but decides not to get involved in his troubles. A kid comes up to that person and tries to sell them a calendar of “oriental beauties.” The young person rips up the calendar, and tells the kid that they know he’s trying to raise money for Reverend Yune Kim Park and the Glorification Church, the same as they used to before running away. They steal the kid’s money, and the kid figures out that the person he’s talking to is a young woman named Chance, a renegade from the Church. Chance counts the money she just got, but is approached by two tough guys wanting to rob her. She runs from them, but finds herself in an alley. The two guys come at her with switchblades, so she prepares to hand over the cash. Bobby intervenes, and turns on his mutant powers. He pushes one guy, and lifts the other over his head, but just then his powers start to drain. The two guys come at him with their knives and a lead pipe.
- As the two tough guys approach, Bobby feels weak and scared. Chance, on the other hand, dives in, attacking the men. They start kicking her, and Bobby hits one, but without powering up first, so it does nothing. While the two men focus on beating up Bobby, Chance notices a door opening. A woman dressed like an 80s go-go girl, whom Chance calls Ariel, calls her over, and Chance goes through the sliding door before it closes. This is when Warlock shows up, and chases the two men away, saving Bobby. Bobby tells Warlock to leave him, saying he’s not fit to be around. Bobby rolls up the door grate to see where Chance went, but the space behind the door is dark and quiet, unlike the room he caught a glimpse of her escaping into. At the Xavier School, Magneto greets his visitors from Muir Island. Moira explains that she brought Jamie and Theresa since they are only a little older than the kids and thought they could help relate to the New Mutants. Magneto explains that Bobby has taken off, and Warlock has gone after him, and that the other kids are sad. Jamie and Theresa plan to go looking for them, and Magneto provides them with a portable Cerebro unit. Bobby and Warlock (who has changed his appearance to look like the fictional detective Sam Spade) walk around Manhattan. Warlock uses his transmode virus to eat some garbage, but Bobby is very hungry. He decides to lean into his new conception of himself as a bad person, and walks up to a building and, activating his powers, rips the door off the hinges, thinking to rob the place. When he steps inside, he realizes he’s broken into a church, and feels bad. When the priest comes to talk to him, he runs. Three other guys bust into the church afterwards, knock the priest down, and start helping themselves to things. A small teenager stands in the doorway and tells them to stop or he, Don, and Bill will do something (we don’t see who Don and Bill are). The tough guys laugh, and then the camera pans to the priest, who upon standing up, sees that the tough guys are knocked out and the church a shambles. The young man talks to his feet as he runs down the street, revealing that he was sent to find Bobby and Warlock. Jamie and Theresa are at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and make a plan to search for the missing New Mutants. Jamie makes a couple dozen duplicates of himself, and Theresa gives each of them a copy of Bobby’s photo (wouldn’t it have been easier to give it to Jamie before he duplicated?). The dupes spread out, while the prime Jamie and Theresa calibrate the Cerebro unit to avoid Jamies. The odd kid from before, who has a shock of white hair and glasses, keeps talking to something on the ground, although we only can read his side of the conversation. One of his unseen companions wants to go into a restaurant for lunch, but the kid freaks out when he sees that it’s a seafood restaurant. One of the Jamies walks past this scene, and approaches two guys sitting on a stoop. It turns out that he’s found Bobby and Warlock. He starts to explain that everyone is worried about them, but then more Madroxes start to show up (Madrox was a goof even before Peter David wrote him that way). The kid with white hair rushes up, introducing himself as Gomi, and tells Bobby that the Fallen Angels want him to join them. He also tells him to watch his step, and we see that Bill and Don are lobsters (Bill is green, Don is blue). Warlock is happy to meet the lobsters, and Gomi tells Bobby to come to something called the Beat Street Clubhouse with him. Bobby says he doesn’t want to leave his friends, and Gomi extends an invitation to all of them. Bobby tells Jamie that he resents that the New Mutants didn’t come looking for him themselves, and his view is supported by another newcomer to this growing scene. The Vanisher has teleported among them, and Bobby recognizes him as a villain, so he powers up. Vanisher explains that he was only there to show Bobby understanding. Jamie Prime and Theresa follow the Cerebro to this scene, and recognizing the Vanisher, Theresa takes to the air and attacks. Vanisher teleports away. The door to the seafood restaurant opens, and Chance is there, asking Bobby to come to Beat Street with her (and Ariel). Bobby and Warlock decide to come in, as does Gomi, the lobsters, and all the Jamies. Theresa tries to catch up, but the door slams in her face. When she opens it, she can see the inside of the restaurant, which looks normal and lacks all of her friends.
- It was a nice surprise to see that Marie Severin drew issue three. She’s such a classic artist, and her pencils go so well with Tom Palmer’s inks. After a brief recap, we see the inside of the Beat St. Club, which is basically a den with some records, a video game console, a couch, a bean bag chair, and a hot plate. Ariel explains that the Fallen Angels are a group of misfits, and Chance thinks that Sunspot and Warlock would fit in nicely. Bobby, who has started using very strange dialogue (words like ‘reproach’ don’t really work for him) is annoyed that Chance left him, but Ariel explains that’s why they came back to find him. Bobby says he’ll stay if they take Warlock too, and she agrees. She offers the group of Madroxes the chance to stay as well. Gomi talks to the lobsters, and realizes that they’re hungry. Vanisher, who is apparently in charge (something that no one is questioning) sends Ariel and Chance to get some food. Back at the seafood restaurant, Theresa and Jamie Prime (I didn’t realize the rest were dupes) are a little confused. Theresa almost causes a scene, but Jamie calms her down and they sit to have a meal. Jamie explains how each of his dupes is independent. We move to one of the dupes, who offered to help a woman with her bags at the bus terminal last issue. He’s gone home with the woman, and he doesn’t want to get reabsorbed. At the Beat Street Club, the other dupes decide that there would be more room if they combined into just one. Ariel returns with the food. When Gomi tries to clear the table with his telekinesis, he sends everything flying, and when the Vanisher gets angry, one of the lobsters pincers him. Bobby is bitter about how loyal the lobsters are, and talks about how he feels abandoned by his friends, which then makes Warlock feel like he’s not enough. Bobby reassures him. Jamie asks Gomi about the lobsters, and so Gomi tells his origin story. He mentions that Don (the blue lobster) is a mutant, but that Bill isn’t. Instead, all three of them are cyborgs. Gomi (that’s not his real name, which he hates and won’t reveal) was friendly with his cousin and his cousin’s friend and partner, and got a job working for them when they got a research grant from Columbia. He worked, unpaid, to clean their lab, where they were experimenting with augmenting crustaceans. Gomi (his name means ‘garbage’ in Japanese, but he doesn’t appear to know that) got close to the lobsters, while the two scientists obsessed over Marvel Girl, whom they had crushes on. Their experiments on the lobsters gave them great strength. The two men figured out that Marvel Girl became the Phoenix, but they didn’t find her as attractive so they decided to make a cybernetic device that would recreate Marvel Girl’s powers. They implanted it into Gomi, but all he could do was create a force blast. The scientists lost their funding, and took off. Gomi was found by the Fallen Angels and joined them. Jamie asks Ariel about her powers, and she explains that she’s not a mutant and that everyone where she’s from can do what she does. Basically, she can mentally connect any door to any other, so when she opens it, she effectively teleports. There’s something about bending space. Vanisher suggests they demonstrate Ariel’s powers and go rescue Boom Boom from X-Factor (this is when most of the world believed that X-Factor hunted mutants, a cover they used to actually help them). Chance is against this, but is shouted down. At the same time, Jamie Prime and Theresa are walking past X-Factor’s headquarters, and getting a number of readings on their Cerebro machine. Inside, Iceman and Beast talk while Hank does some sort of chemistry experiment. Boom Boom enters the room and makes a small explosion, blowing up Hank’s stuff. Iceman chases her, just as Ariel demonstrates her powers, and opens a door into X-Factor’s building. She calls for Boom Boom, who comes running. Ariel closes the door, confusing Iceman and Beast, who can only find cleaning supplies when they open it. Tabitha is pretty happy to be back with her friends, while Ariel dodges Bobby and Warlock’s questions about where she’s from. Ariel next wants to show that she can also open doors without causing teleportation, and when she does that, we see Jamie Prime and Theresa standing there, about to knock (I guess they aren’t that far away from the X-Factor building). Ariel welcomes them, but Theresa confronts Bobby, but Vanisher and Chance come to his verbal aid. Jamie absorbs his last dupe. Ariel offers to explain everything to everyone, but suggests they head outside. She opens the door and they all end up in a field somewhere (it looks like there would have had to be a door in the middle of a flower bed, which seems unlikely).
- The team finds itself being attacked by a dinosaur (the long spiny kind), and the place they’ve gone looks a lot more primordial than it did in the last issue. They run, and Bobby recaps things (showing that there was a door in the side of a mountain that Ariel brought them through). We see that when the dinosaur first showed up, Vanisher teleported away. Siryn takes to the air and tries to blast the creature, while Boom Boom tosses one of her timebombs at it. Tabitha and Jamie argue, and she hits him a few times, creating dupes that help to pull the lobsters to safety as Warlock pulls Gomi into the air. Bobby tries to help Chance but they trip, and the beast moves towards the girl. Bobby powers up and flips the dinosaur over, which surprises them both because Bobby is not usually that strong. He hits it with a tree, but a piece breaks off and cracks him in the head, knocking him out. Ariel, who’d run away, returns as Chance ministers to Bobby. In the shadows, we can see that our heroes are being watched by what is clearly a T. Rex, with a humanoid shape on its back. The humanoid wonders what brought these people to the “Valley of the Flame.” Chance argues with Ariel, and we learn that they’re on another planet, where she knows there are two significant native mutants. When Ariel asks Chance if she’s “soft” on Bobby, just as he wakes up, it makes her prove that she doesn’t care and the two girls leave him. A large shadow looms over him. Vanisher convinces himself that the kids will be fine, but when he sees an innocent lizard, he freaks out and teleports away again. The others stop running and gather together (literally, in Jamie’s case). It looks like Tabitha is developing an interest in Jamie. Warlock is worried about Bobby, and goes looking for him. Gomi wants to get a fire going, and blasts a tree to get some wood. He almost hits Tabitha with his powers, so she gets ready to attack him. The lobsters trick her, so her timebomb makes some more trees explode. Warlock hears noises and hurries to find Bobby standing over a dead T. Rex. Warlock asks Bobby why he acted heroically to save Chance if he now views himself as a villain, and he explains that even villains help their teammates. He also says he didn’t kill the T. Rex, and points to who did – it’s Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy. Ariel and Chance continue to walk through the jungle, talking about the mutants they are looking for. They spot something moving in the trees, and Chance jumps, tackling Vanisher. Gomi cooks some dinosaur meat while Jamie explains how the Cerebro unit works. Gomi explains that only Don is a mutant, because of his blue colour. Jamie calibrates Cerebro, and feels momentarily confused. Vanisher, Ariel, and Chance arrive and join the group, and Jamie points out that he’s getting mutant readings from all three of them. Vanisher wants to leave, but decides they should eat first. Theresa questions if he was going to abandon Bobby and Warlock, but that’s when they arrive. Jamie picks up big mutant readings – Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy, whom Ariel wants to have join the team. Vanisher welcomes them. (We are now halfway through this series, and are still assembling the team, with no explanation of why it’s needed).
- There is an explosion in the Beat Street Club, because Boom Boom wanted to show Jamie how her powers work. Theresa accuses her of showing off to flirt with him, but Tabitha insists that the time bomb was more powerful than it was supposed to be. We see that Moon Boy is hanging out with the group now, but no one can understand what he’s saying (we can read his speech, and we see he’s pretty perceptive). Everyone is arguing a little, but Chance’s disagreement with Tabitha gets so heated she ends up pulling a knife on her. Theresa intends to use her powers to knock the knife out of her hand, but ends up destroying it. Vanisher steps in to restore order, demanding that someone clean up the clubhouse. Jamie has Bobby hit his hand so he can create a dupe, but it doesn’t work. When Chance hits him, he turns into four people, instead of the usual two. This happens again. Elsewhere, Ariel, Gomi, and Warlock are looking through a large warehouse space, trying to decide if it would be more suitable as a new Beat Street Club, since the group has gotten so large. Gomi worries because the lobsters have snuck off, but then he finds them. In Beat Street, Vanisher is worried when the wall starts to make noise and begins moving. Warlock slips through beneath the wall, and he and Ariel explain that they were next door. We learn that Bill found a switch that moves the wall up and down, and Gomi shows that now they have a large enough space to fit Devil Dinosaur. Moon Boy is happy to see his friend, who settles down for a nap. Jamie feels odd when he pulls his dupes together. Vanisher wants to send the team out to steal some food, saying he wants Moon Boy to stay behind. The Angels split into pairs – Ariel and Chance, Bobby and Warlock, and Theresa and Jamie. This annoys Tabitha, who wanted to go with Jamie, and she’s even more annoyed when she realizes she’s stuck with Gomi and the lobsters. As they walk around, Jamie and Theresa talk about how they haven’t brought Bobby back, and justify that they are now heading out to steal. Ariel and Chance talk about the fact that they might be mutants. We learn that Ariel is from another planet, and that there are no mutants on her planet. We learn that she’s promised Chance something, and when they see a fruit vendor that she recognizes from the Glorification Church, they go and talk him into giving them free food. They spot Bobby and Warlock across the street, and when Ariel asks if Chance has a thing for Bobby (she ominously mentions something they’ll have to do later), to prove she doesn’t, Chance runs towards a woman, steals her wallet, and then as they run, gets Bobby and Warlock involved. Ariel opens a door, and they end up in the swimming pool of a YWCA. The two girls disappear through another door, leaving Warlock and Bobby behind. Chance and Ariel take their food and stolen wallet to Vanisher. Moon Boy figures out that everyone has left to forage and wants to contribute, so he leaves with Devil Dinosaur. Bobby has a hard time explaining to the women at the pool why he’s there (everyone is fully clothed, so it seems like a lot of overreaction). Warlock explains that they aren’t perverts, but mutants, and that makes things worse as the women react like bigots. Bobby turns into Sunspot and breaks a hole in the wall for them to escape through. Gomi has to convince Tabitha to not use her powers to make it easier to steal things. They spot Jamie, but when Tabitha speaks to him, he ignores her. When she calls him by his name, he reacts, but then runs from them. He steps into traffic and gets hit by a guy on a bike. The lobsters chase off the bike rider after he starts to talk to Gomi. Jamie is still a little stunned, so Tabitha sits with him. Moon Boy spots them and steers Devil Dinosaur towards them. Theresa and Jamie Prime (clearly, the one with Tabitha is the independent dupe) stop walking as Jamie feels worse than before. He figures out that he must have an unaccounted for dupe somewhere. Bobby and Warlock have returned to Beat Street, and Bobby wants to have it out with Chance, but the others need their help to go looking for Devil Dinosaur. Theresa and Jamie come across the other Jamie, and the two Madroxes talk about how the dupe wants to continue living an independent life. Vanisher and his group find everyone, and ask if they’ve seen the dinosaur. Gomi just manages to stop Tabitha from stepping on Bill when he hears a crunch. Devil Dinosaur has arrived with Moon Boy, and has stepped on Don, crushing him.
- After the funeral for Don, Gomi talks to Bill about his anger. Bobby continues to narrate, explaining that Bill’s death was a tragic accident. Warlock and Bobby approach Gomi to offer their condolences, and Warlock notices how angry Bill is. When Theresa puts her hand on Gomi’s shoulder to comfort him, he takes it the wrong way and falls in love, using his grief as an excuse to get a hug from her. Moon Boy comes to get Bobby, to bring him to Devil Dinosaur. Chance makes fun of Bobby, and he points out that only a few people are showing compassion, while the rest are just eating. Even though Bobby can’t understand Moon Boy, we see that he wants him to help cheer up Devil Dinosaur, who feels badly. Bobby talks about how he hurt his friend Sam, and doesn’t know that Chance is listening at the door. Ariel talks to Chance about how they need to move on their plans before they get discovered by X-Factor or the Marauders. From their conversation, it becomes clear that Ariel and Chance are going to sell their teammates to someone. Jamie Prime and Jamie Dupe talk about how the dupe is still getting over his injuries, and how Jamie doesn’t want to absorb him against his will. Jamie wants to use the Cerebro device to scan Ariel and Chance to see if they’re mutants. Warlock points out that Bill has gone after Devil Dinosaur. Moon Boy thinks he’s there to be friendly, but Bill attacks him. This riles Devil Dinosaur up, and Bobby has to power up to try to hold him back. Theresa sees how wild things are getting, and uses a sonic scream to shut everyone down (Vanisher takes off again). Things start calming down, and the Jamies notice that Gomi has a crush on Theresa. Chance is rude about the whole thing, and she and Ariel make jokes about cooking Bill. Warlock agrees with them, and then the dupes that Jamie created (other than the injured one) all disappear. Chance is rude again, and Bobby gets angry with her. Tabitha decides to scare her with a timebomb, but it doesn’t explode. This angers Warlock, who says he’s going to kill Tabitha (and stops calling her ‘friend’). No one can get their powers to work, aside from Gomi, who blasts Warlock. Warlock starts to recover, and Bobby theorizes that since Warlock’s mutation is what causes his compassion, when the rest had their powers switched off, that’s the change it caused in him. Tabitha’s bomb finally explodes, and everyone agrees they’ve been acting strangely. Jamie’s dupe was using Cerebro through the whole situation, and detected that either Ariel or Chance were using powers during that scenario. He also noticed that he and Jamie Prime are reading separately on the device. Vanisher thinks that an enemy is moving against them, and says Beat Street isn’t safe anymore. Ariel suggests that it’s time for them to move on, and has an idea of where she can go. She opens a door and the whole team finds themselves on a stage on her home planet, the Coconut Grove. We see a bunch of people dressed in 80s gaudiness in an audience, and it’s clear they’ve been waiting for them. Bobby turns to go back through the door, but it closes, trapping them.
- Chance does not respond well to the people of Coconut Grove trying to give her a makeover and new clothes. Bobby and Warlock (who are happy with their new clothes) and Ariel rush over, and Bobby laughs when he sees Chance’s new look. Ariel scolds her people and helps Chance restore her old look. When Bobby makes a crack about “feminine weakness”, Chance gets very angry with him, but we learn from the narration that he thinks she’s cute when angry. The guy who welcomed them to the planet, Unipar, comes up to Ariel to talk, and we get a better idea that Ariel has manipulated everyone to come to the planet because they’re mutants, but she makes it clear that Chance is her only friend and is not a mutant. Chance asks why they all came, but Ariel won’t tell her. Boom Boom comes up to them, and suggests they get even with Bobby. She makes a small time bomb and silips it into his back pocket. When it blows, and he starts chasing her, he realizes that his rear end is exposed, and everyone laughs at him. He starts to power up in rage, but remembers what happened with Sam Guthrie and backs down. Chance momentarily feels bad, but Ariel and Boom Boom talk her out of it. At the same time, Ariel says something about not needing the Fallen Angels, and then quickly tells Boom Boom she doesn’t mean her, and it looks like she makes her forget the conversation. Ariel talks to Chance about how the Ariel character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest was based on her relative, and mentions that she got trapped in a cloven pine tree (I don’t know what that means) because it doesn’t have any doors to escape through. Siryn flies over with Madrox, but her scream is twice as loud as it usually is. Theresa explains that she couldn’t really dampen it. Jamie tells them that Vanisher wants them all to meet, so they step through a door to the place where he’s staying. They close the door on Boom Boom, not having seen her coming. Unipar approaches Tabitha, and talks to her about how wonderful it is to be a mutant, which never happens on their planet. He leads her somewhere, and gives a signal behind his back to two people dressed in uniforms. Warlock flies Bobby to the meeting, and we see that aside from Tabitha, the whole group is there, enjoying some food from Earth. Jamie asks where Tabitha is, and Ariel lies and says she hasn’t seen her all day. Jamie’s injured dupe has made a dupe of his own, also injured, and as stubborn and individualistic. Jamie Prime wants to scan Chance and Ariel with Cerebro, and Ariel again explains that there are no mutants on Coconut Grove. She talks about how special mutants are, but Jamie interrupts to tell her that Cerebro is reading her as she talks (she seems extra sparkly when she’s convincing people of something). Two other Coconut Grovians (?) overhear this. Jamie wants to recalibrate the device, so Theresa tries to demonstrate a little bit of her power, and ends up being way too loud. Vanisher teleports away, and when Bobby bumps into Jamie, three dupes appear. Jamie says he got a strong reading from Chance when peoples’ powers went wild. Chance tries to deflect to Vanisher, but he explains he couldn’t stop himself from teleporting away. Gomi starts to suggest that Chance is starting puberty and therefore just now manifesting her power, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of some armed soldier types. Ariel tells the Angels to go with them, and again registers on the Cerebro device. Bobby and Theresa try to use their powers, but they’re gone. Vanisher is stuck there, and Jamie’s newer dupes disappear. Gomi blasts some of the guards and explains that Chance is negating their powers. Chance has no control over it. One of the guards shoots a disruptor beam at Warlock, and Gomi blasts him into a wall. Ariel helps a guard subdue Gomi, and the others blast at Devil Dinosaur. The Fallen Angels are rounded up, and one of the guards wants Chance to join them. Ariel protests as Unipar arrives. He says something about how they need to do this for the sake of their race, and Ariel apologizes to Chance and then walks away. As she leaves, Unipar traps her in a forcefield so she can’t access any doors, and reveals that Ariel, too, is a mutant.
- Bill is the only Fallen Angel that hasn’t been captured, and he is angry. The team has been put into uniforms and are herded into a cell that has a built-in mutant dampener. There’s another cell inside it that spins like a top, which is designed to keep Gomi from using his cybernetic powers. Unipar, whom I think might be based on Elton John, boasts and thanks Ariel for finding him such a diverse collection of mutants to study. He pushes Ariel into the cell (she should have known something was up when she had to put on the same uniform) and traps her inside a forcefield again. The Angels talk amongst themselves, realizing that they are powerless to escape (Moon Boy is worried that there will be repercussions if Devil Dinosaur just rampages). They realize that Tabitha and Bill are not with them, but that’s when Boom Boom is brought to the cell, in pain from their experiments. Bobby yells at Unipar, and when he talks back, the two injured Jamies make it clear that they won’t let anyone else be taken. One of Unipar’s guards shoots one of the Jamies, killing him, and Unipar has all three Madroxes brought with him, and Bobby too when he objects. They put them in a different holding cell, where Bobby suggests that Jamie make a bunch of new dupes and absorb them and the surviving injured one all at once, so that he’ll recover quicker once they get their powers back. The others continue to try to figure out a way to escape. Chance wonders why she always went along with whatever Ariel wanted, while Vanisher questions his decision to create a teen gang of thieves in the first place (which really, I think, needed to be addressed before this). They hear screams outside their cell, and see that Bill has come to their aid. He takes out the guard and gets his keys, opening the cell, and freeing Gomi. Gomi has to convince Bill to help the others, as he’s still so angry about Don’s death. They talk about what to do with Ariel, with Theresa speaking up for her. Once they’re all free, Ariel wants to leave, but Chance insists that they go get Bobby and Jamie first. They attack the guards and use the Cerebro scanner to track their friends. Tabitha, Chance, and Warlock go to the cell where they’re being held, and Tabitha helps Chance figure out her ability to either cancel or double people’s powers. With the door opened, Jamie makes a number of dupes and reabsorbs them. Bobby and Chance hold off the guards. Once everyone is united, Unipar wants the guards to start killing everyone, but Ariel points out that this won’t help him achieve his goals. Unipar goes along with Ariel, and Chance figures out that Ariel’s mutant power is to convince people to do things, and she augments those abilities. Between that and the threat of Devil Dinosaur, Unipar agrees to let the Angels leave. Bobby pauses to point out that since Ariel is a mutant, clearly their people can still evolve. They return to Beat Street. Bobby tells everyone that it’s time for him and Warlock to go home to the New Mutants, and Theresa tells him to let Moira know she and Jamie are going to stay with the Angels for a while to keep them on the side of good. The two young mutants walk away, feeling good.
Okay, I’m not sure what the point of this miniseries was, or why it was made. I remember not disliking it as a kid, but as an adult, all I could think of while reading this were the various problems undermining the plot, and how it raised so many questions.
Let’s just accept for a moment that The Vanisher, one of the X-Men’s earliest villains, just decides at some point to start recruiting teenagers to work for him, like a modern day mutant Fagin. Why is it that at no point do the more established characters question this? Bobby knows who he is, and presumably Theresa and Jamie would as well, yet they’re fine hanging out with him. He’s a middle aged man who lives with and bosses around a bunch of teenagers, and that seems okay with everyone. Further to that – do the Fallen Angels live at the Beat Street Clubhouse? Are there rooms? Do they have any other clothes? The premise for this could work, but more needed to be shown and explained (it feels like this whole series is crammed into maybe two days, based on the number of meals the team eats, but no one ever seems to sleep).
I don’t know that we need to know how Ariel, Vanisher, and Chance met up, but it might have helped make the whole series more believable had we seen that. It’s clear that Chance is involved in Ariel’s plot from the beginning, at least to the extent that she was told, but no one ever seems to question the way that Ariel is recruiting mutants. She takes them all to another planet to get a giant dinosaur and a boy that none of them can communicate with, brings them back to their home, and no one finds that weird. Even with Ariel’s powers of persuasion, you’d think someone would question things like that.
I’m not sure why Theresa and Jamie would have decided to stay with the team, especially considering they didn’t have any of their stuff with them when they joined up. They didn’t seem to particularly like the other members of the team, and the idea that Siryn could lead them doesn’t really fit with what we saw before.
I wonder if this series was originally a trial balloon for an ongoing title. There are some plot threads that were left dangling, so I can see where there would be story ideas for a new title, but I’m guessing sales didn’t allow for that.
I think that the most interesting aspect of this book was the discussion of the Glorification Church that Chance talked about getting away from. After the first issue, I assumed that would be the direction this series would go in, but aside from meeting a fruit seller who attends the church, that was a dead end, story wise. I think a cult story might have worked a lot better than the gaudy nonsense that was Coconut Grove.
I reread X-Factor and New Mutants a few years back for this column, but don’t remember when or how Boom Boom ended up in the New Mutants after her appearances here, nor do I remember Bobby or Warlock acknowledging that they knew each other. Siryn would end up on X-Force, and Multiple Man on X-Factor when Peter David took over. Later, when David revitalized the title, focusing it on Jamie’s work as an investigator, the relationship between Jamie and Theresa would be pivotal.
The one thing that appealed to me about this book was the way that Bobby was the central character. I always liked him and wanted to get to know more about him, and I feel like Duffy had a good handle on him, in terms of how he saw the world in absolute terms. If he wasn’t capable of being good, he thought it meant he had to be bad. In that respect, this series did a good job of helping him to see gray areas and grow as a character. (I like that he’s showing up regularly in X-Men Red now, and that Al Ewing is finally writing him as less of a joke than we saw whenever Jonathan Hickman used him).
Vanisher would later turn up in the excellent Uncanny X-Force run by Rick Remender, as a reluctant (and much-tattooed) member of the X-Men’s black ops squad.
From looking around the internet, it seems that Ariel turned up a few times in some mid-00s X-Men comics, but they weren’t very memorable. Gomi’s turned up from time to time too, but that poor character never had much potential and was quickly forgotten. I don’t even really want to acknowledge that the Marvel Universe has a cybernetic green lobster named Bill. I know very little about Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur (in fact, I never knew they were from another planet until I read this), but I know that the dinosaur is now teamed up with Moon-Girl in one of those changes that I’m sure enraged all four lifelong Moon Boy fans. I don’t think Chance was ever used again, which is too bad, because of all of these characters, she had the most potential.
I’m curious to know why this eight issue miniseries ended up with three artists and three inkers. I was very happy with the work that Kerry Gammill was doing, especially as it was inked by Tom Palmer, who is one of the greatest inkers of all time. I’ve never been a big Joe Staton fan, but I found that he was keeping things pretty muted here, and I kind of liked that.
At the end of the day, this was an engaging and bizarre series that showed attempts to develop some minor characters, but it was never clear to what end. It’s weird that Marvel tried to revive the title (with no connection to the content) in the first wave of their Krakoan books. I’m not surprised that it was the first to be canceled.
Next time around, I want to look into a miniseries that had a truly cosmic scope.
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