Open Mike Night: Scarlet Witch #1-2/Uncanny X-Men (1963) #4

Open Mike Night by Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

Scarlet Witch  #1-2

Written by: James Robinson
Art by: Vanesa Del Rey (issue 1), Marco Rudy (issue 2)
Colored by: Jordie Bellaire (issue 1)
Lettered by: VC’s Cory Petit

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99 (each)

Weaver: The Scarlet Witch’s solo comic is the story of Wanda seeking to “heal” witchcraft with the assistance of ghostly Agatha Harkness. Well, more companionship than assistance. Anyway.  Wanda decides that she wants to do something important by herself and not as part of a team in order to atone for some of her wrongdoings.  She figures out that there’s a “sickness” within witchcraft, that someone or something is bending it in extremely negative ways, and she sets out to find whoever or whatever that is and deal with it.

In the first story, she handles a spirit of hatred and envy in New York City.  It had been summoned by whatever caused the sickness and was setting about inspiring low wage workers to kill their rich customers.  There was a really good sequence in here where Wanda asks a detective to show her a crime scene not because she actually wants to see it but to get him away from other people as she knows he’s now harboring the demon.  After dealing with that, she heads off to Greece to get some advice from Hekate.  Hekate doesn’t have much information, but asks Wanda to get rid of a minotaur that had shown up in return for a favor later.  The minotaur is actually low rate villain Man-Bull transformed by the “sickness”.  She dispels the curse, freeing Man-Bull.  She then has a conversation with Agatha Harkness about how positive uses of witchcraft are paid for by the caster and negative uses drain people around the caster, which prompts a look-in to Hekate, who has been drained to nothingness by a mysterious Irish guy.

This series is pretty well-plotted and delves into the magical side of the Marvel Universe while still being a detective story and redemption story.  I was pretty impressed by the story.  It’s not often that something takes several logical twists and turns that I didn’t expect, but it happens here.

Maillaro: Maybe it’s just me, but I always find it amusing when a comic book tries to do a big cliffhanger...but doesn’t put it in any context.  The mysterious Irish guy is a bastard named the Emerald Warlock.  He first appeared a few months ago in a Uncanny Avengers Annual 1 (which was also written by James Robinson...has no connection to Uncanny Avengers...and basically is just a covert lead into this series).  Interesting enough, he was an old ally of Agatha Harkness, when she was young and pretty hot, but he ends up going evil.  That last panel reveal in issue 2 is basically completely meaningless unless you have read that issue.  It had no impact on my enjoyment of these issues, I just thought it was damn odd.  

I am also real curious if this is a coincidence or actually connected, but in the current Doctor Strange series, he is also dealing with “magic dying.”  Though in that case, it seems to be caused by a group of powerful technology wielding dimension hoppers.  I really hope the two stories end up connecting, otherwise that is just some poor editorial work on Marvel’s part.

Weaver: It didn’t impact my enjoyment either.  I was fine with not knowing who he was.  It was still a decent enough cliffhanger, since you finally get a look at the villain (even if you don’t recognize him).  

It would be a missed opportunity if they don’t mesh those two together, but I’ve seen a lot of opportunities missed in my day.  I imagine that Strange and Wanda are going to crossover occasionally...or, probably more likely, whichever gets canceled will resolve plots in the other title.

In the second issue, there were a lot of really unique page layouts that I liked a lot.  I started out not liking the art at all, but it grew on me, especially once the artist started experimenting with how the page should look.

Maillaro: Yeah, it was real odd, but the artist of the second issue is not the person who drew the first issue.   I did like that the page layouts in the second issue that were trying to resemble the labyrinth the minotaur should inhabit.  But, they did get a little repetitive.  They shouldn’t have used the same exact template for every page. Still, I appreciate the effort that went into this issue to try and make it very different from anything else out there.  

I also liked that they used Man-bull. I have no real connection to the character, but it was much better than just “here’s a random guy who just happens to have been possessed by the spirit of the Minotaur,” especially since we already kind of got that story in the first issue of the series.  And it was nice that both issues were very stand alone.  You do basically get a whole adventure in each issue, which is rare these days.

Weaver: I’ve actually tried figuring out how sometimes you get a full adventure and then some, and sometimes you don’t even get to the resolution.  I think I’m going to read a few super decompressed stories to see what, in my mind, goes wrong.

Man-Bull is a character I kind of like because I like pretty much all of the man/animal villains that show up.  Man-Bat, Man-Wolf, Man-Bull, Man-Giraffe (it could happen!). But I wasn’t expecting him, and it was a really nice reveal, just like the ordinary guy host reveal in the first issue.  There’s a good pacing to the reveals too...I feel surprised, but not like it was out of left field in retrospect.

This is a comic that I hope has some legs, but I worry for it.  The one advantage it has is that Marvel wants to have a few female-led comics out there, and, well, this is female-led.

Maillaro: I think one of the biggest problems this book has going for is that Marvel has done such a lousy job with Scarlet Witch over the last few years. I actually was going to skip this series entirely, and I read most every number 1 Marvel puts out.  But with Robinson’s name on it, and the fact I loved the lead-in in Uncanny Avengers, I changed my mind at the last minute.  And I’m glad I did, because it’s one of the best new series Marvel is putting out.  

Weaver: I’d like to amend that to best new original series...I think Uncanny X-Men is a hair better, but that’s a legacy series just with a new first issue.

Scarlet Witch is a tough character for people to get right simply because she literally can do anything (sorta).  That kind of limitless power is hard to write with limits, but Robinson does a great job with grounding it into reality and giving her magic a drawback.  I think this is solid all around.

I’m giving the writing a 4.5 and the art...issue 1 a 2, issue 2 a 3.5...let's round up and say 3.0.

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #4

Written by: Stan Lee
Pencilled by: Jack Kirby
Inked by:Paul Reinman
Lettered by Art Simek

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $1.99 (on Comixology)

Maillaro: Uncanny X-Men is the first appearance of Scarlet Witch (also Toad, Quicksilver, and Mastermind), which is why we thought it would be a good pairing.  After his defeat by the X-Men, Magneto has started to draft his own Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.  They decide to steal an American war ship and try to take over the country of Santo Marco.

You know what always gets me about reading old comics.  The not-at-all subtle sexism (and racism at times, but there wasn’t any of that in this specific issue).  I know, I know, it’s a product of a different times, so most of the time I can just shake my head at it and not get genuinely pissed.  But the opening of this issue is just a beautiful reminder of this.

We see a Danger Room sequence.  Beast and Iceman have just been put through some real dangerous training exercises.  Beast is dodging massive spiked balls and weights dropping trying to crush him.  Iceman was almost melted in a caldron, and in the end, it’s so bad he ends up losing his ice form entirely.   And then it’s Jean Grey’s turn...and it’s “Use your psychic powers to lift up the top off this box.  There is a cake inside.”  Holy crap. It’s amazing Xavier didn’t slap her on the behind and call her Sugar ***s.  

Aside from that, I thought this was a real good issue.  If nothing else, I liked that we got to see some real depth to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, even from the beginning. Too often, comic villains seem remorselessly evil.  They had a lot of questions about Magneto’s actions.  They did feel they owed Magneto for saving their lives, but Quicksilver acted in subtle ways to ensure Magneto could not hurt innocent people, including breaking the fuse off of a nuclear weapon.  

Weaver: I didn’t feel the same way about that training sequence, particularly because right after it Warren’s training exercise was “I dunno, go out and fly around or something lol.”  I guess Xavier considers Warren a woman too?  Actually...maybe.

Anyway, it’s long been stated that what made the Fantastic Four special, and thus the “Marvel Era”, was that they were a super team who at times actively antagonized each other as opposed to a tight knit squadron of vigilantes.  Here, the Brotherhood is pretty much the villain version of that.  Mastermind is more or less unreservedly evil, Quickie and the Witch are serving out of duty (and because Quicksilver doesn’t care about homo sapiens until he cares about them at the end of the issue), and Toad just wants Magneto to like him, basically.

This was a good issue, and also interesting because of made up South American country.  The Avengers eventually visit this place too, not bad for a place that isn’t on any map I have.

Maillaro: Marvel and DC seem to love just making up places, often that allow them to portray the real world...without having to portray the real world.  I’ve always been a fan of Genosha and Trans-Sabal.  When we do RPG’s, I take any excuse to have them show up.  I completely forgot about Santo Marco until I had read this issue for this review.

One thing that jumped out at me here was I think this is the first issue where the seem to hint at some kind of connection between Magneto and Xavier.  Xavier reaches out to Magneto via telepathy, and tries to get him to see reason.  I really liked that, since it helped show that Magneto wasn’t just a mustache twirling villain.  Him and Xavier really were just two men who had wildly different ways of approaching the same problem.

And maybe it's just because I’ve been watching Clone Wars, but when I saw Cyclops blasting guards and sending them rolling away, it was just about the funniest thing I had read in a comic in a long time.

Weaver: I was amused by guard bowling too.  Anyway, Xavier said that he knew Magneto previous to X-Men #1 during the course of X-Men #1, but this is the first time that he tries to talk him down.  Well, when fisticuffs aren’t being exchanged yet.  The depth of the Magneto and Xavier relationship didn’t really materialize til Claremont was writing, but it’s nice to see the groundwork.

Like any Silver Age comic, there’s a lot of questionable suspension of disbelief moments (Warren sees the boat but not the fortified island?  A random company is selling a Navy Destroyer with weapons still intact?  No one reports on that Destroyer being stolen?) but all that was just par for the 1960’s.

Maillaro: It’s sort of like Doctor Who in that way. They didn’t worry so much about explaining everything in the 60’s and 70’s.  You get a lot of “I’ll tell you later.”  Hey, it worked for Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  You know, it’s clear that in the Marvel universe in the 60’s, you really could buy anything if you had the money. Destroyers...nuclear plants…

All teasing aside, I love that this comic really laid so much ground-work for stories that are being told to this day.  Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in particular.  Hell, Magneto even leads his own team of X-Men these days.  Too often in comics, continuity seems to be swept under the rug, but for the X-Books at least, I love that the storyline has basically remained intact for 50+ years.

Kirby’s art here is far better than the first issue, which I always had issues with. I especially loved when he drew the Astral Plane for the first time (at least I think it’s the first time, it’s been a long time since I read early X-Men issues).  I think I would go with a 4 for the writing, 4.5 for the art.

Weaver: I think it’s the first Astral Plane...definitely the first in X-Men.  We also see the other recurring plot for the next 50 years...Xavier’s health starts to fail, can the X-Men survive without Professor X?  Then he comes back, then it fails, then he comes back, then he dies, etc etc.  But this is the first instance.

I’m going to agree with your scores, but I’ll reverse them.  I liked the writing a bit better than the art.  4.5 for writing 4.0 for art.

Maillaro: A lot of the old X-Men stories run together for me.  Was this when he was faking his injury to give them a test, or did that come later?

Weaver: I think that was later.  I have only read bits and chunks of the original X-Men stories.  I know that the “Professor X dies” in the original run was that he was doing exactly what I was doing in the 70’s...sitting in the basement fighting aliens for days on end.

Maillaro: I don’t want to get stuck on women, but we’ve got Captain Marvel #1 coming out this week, which seems to be a huge change in the status quo for Carol Danvers (and written by the creators of Agent Carter).  And we could do the first two issues of Patsy Walker.  I loved the first one, and issue 2 comes out tomorrow.  

Weaver: I often talk about how interesting I find Patsy’s publication history, so I’m all about that.  Captain Marvel...I’m lukewarm on anything space related, but I’ll give it a go.  Sounds good.

Maillaro: I think her Alpha Flight team is more about “protect the Earth from space threats” than Carol actually being in space, so you should be all right there.

Weaver: If she gets out of the atmosphere, I’ll come up with some horrible comeuppance for you.  Yes, worse than making you read Team America.

Maillaro: Seems fair!  Until next week then!

Final Scores