Scott Summers--Pool Hustler!

Scott, on sabbatical from the X-Men (because his girlfriend just died for the first of several times), is hanging out with some co-workers...

No wonder people hate mutants.

From Uncanny X-Men #144 (1981)

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--So This Doesn't Work Eveytime Because...?

"Tie up Cyclops and put a blindfold on him, and you've neutralized him," goes the old canard.

Oh, yeah?

So why doesn't Scott do this every time?

Fair question, true believer...

From X-Men #45 (1968)

Jean Grey--Easter Bunny, Or Biscuit??

And then there was that time that Jean Grey became a swimsuit model!

"She's fresh, boss lady! Like an Easter Bunny, or an oven-hot biscuit!"

I have no idea what that even means...

OK, is that the Bunny, or the biscuit?!?

Yes, the FBI ordered the X-Men to split up and go undercover...well, because!!

So Jean is just posing as a small-town girl come to the big city for her first modelling job!!

Don't worry, Scott has his cover identity, too!

He's the hunky jealous boyfriend who also is a news reporter on a radio station!

In about a trillion years, I would never think of Scott Summers as a "Lee Marvin type." Still, if the ladies like it...

Yowza--the swinging 60s!!

From X-Men #48 (1968)

Friday Night Fights--Inborn Talent For Spacial (Sic) Geometry Style!!

It's man versus machine--and Chris Claremont vs letterers--in this week's Friday Night Fights!!

The X-Men are trapped in Arcade's Murderworld!! Nightcrawler is stuck in a room with crazy, run-away death dealing cars!! Cyclops shows up to help!!

Let's watch!!

Oh, Chris Claremont, you know how to over-explain anything!!

Spacebooger thinks that Tom Orzechowski deserved combat pay for having to fit all those words into tiny caption boxes...

Editor Roger Stern allowed the phrase "spacial geometry" to be used instead of "spatial geometry" in X-Men #124 (1979), by Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin, Glynis Wein, and the poor, beleaguered Orzechowski

Now is the time to go and vote for my fight. Why? Because Cyclops knows exactly where every one of you are, and can blast you (although you'll probably escape by the time Claremont finishes explaining it). So go and vote!!

And Then There Was That Time That Cyclops Played Captain Kirk!!

You know, in the 1960s, folks sure didn't understand how computers work.

Or, at least, creators of pop fiction didn't.

If you believe Captain Kirk (several times), or the Logan's Run film, or any number of other stories, merely telling a computer an illogical thing, or presenting it with a contradiction, would cause the device to crash, and usually to physically explode.

I mean, that's would be pretty cool, right? Heaven knows there's any number of recalcitrant machines in my lifetime that I would have wanted to destroy just by saying, "Computer, this statement is a lie."

Of course, aside from ignorance, such fictions were a reaction to a fear of computers surpassing us, and humans becoming irrelevant. We had to convince ourselves that there were feats of reasons that computers couldn't adapt to, and that our love of illogic was a strength, not a weakness.

(Of course, by the 80s and 90s that shifted, and we realized that we couldn't actually out-think or out-logic a computer, so all our fiction shifted to A.I.s immediately trying to destroy us, and the only way to beat them was blowing the frak out of them.)

Even Cyclops gets into the act. Here, dressed in a Quicksilver uniform just because, he tries to keeps the Sentinels from destroying all of mutantkind:

Well, by gum, it works:

Normally I would give a "Well played, Scott Summers" here, congratulating him on getting the Sentinels to join the likes of Landru, Nomad, M5, Norman and all the androids, the Logan's Run computer, and gosh knows how many other machines.

But unfortunately...

Cyclops admits he was just winging it.

Of course, so was Kirk, usually.

Unfortunately, in this case, Scott merely inspired the Sentinels to mutate and come back to Earth with a plan to sterilize everyone--no more births, no more mutants!! D'oh!!

From now on, Scott, leave the "wrangle the computer with logic" gig to James Tiberius Kirk, OK?

From X-Men #59 (1969)

Bold Fashion Choices--What If The X-Men Had Even Crappier Uniforms?

Some What If's have the most terrifying consequences. For example...

Well, yes, bad things do happen. The Fantastic Four, Hulk and Daredevil are depowered, Thor never returns from Asgard, Iron Man goes alcoholic way earlier and dies, blah blah blah.

But the real tragic consequences of this tiny change in the timeline is that the X-Men end up in the worst damned costumes you've ever seen.

I know--given that the X-Men started with the worst costumes ever designed by Jack Kirby, and given that they've spent the subsequent decades going through bad costume set after bad costume set, you're probably saying, "Gee, snell, How bad could they possibly be?

Pretty bad.

In this reality, Xavier spent years digging himself up from the bowels of the Earth, so Magneto gathered most of the mutants together for self-protection. And either because of Magneto's terrible costume sense, or the lack of Xavier's design aesthetic, get stuff like Angel and Beast dressed thusly:

Or Colossus dressing like it's RenFair day...

And yes, that's a little soul patch he's wearing there:

The Scarlet Witch stays precisely the same, in her original bathing suit/evening gown hybrid and Quicksilver mostly does, except for these 1950s sci-fi style shoulder fins:

Jean Grey? Hey, it's still RenFair season!

Ah, but Cyclops...let's start from the rear, shall we?

The front is not any better (the color register was off on this page...the costume is the same blue as above)...

Nothing says Scott Summers like "lightning bolt pointing to my crotch!"

And then there's the helmet...

That helmet...

Now, the art in this issue was by Vince Mielcarek. So maybe he designed these costumes. Or perhaps author Kurt Busiek gets the blame.

Then again...

...the cover is by Jim Lee, and we all know what happens when we put him in charge of redesigning costumes for alternate universes...

What If? #13 is from 1990, as if we couldn't tell.

A Snarky Observation On A Debate Which Should Have Been Over Long Ago

I've made the point before, but just to reiterate...

Yeah, that really, really looks like "Cyclops was right." If you're a Badoon, that is.

From this week's Guardians Of The Galaxy Infinite #3 (free on Comixology!!). Script is by Bendis, so it can't be claimed the author didn't get the point of AvX...