X-Men Series Beats Part 2
About two years ago I wrote an essay on pacing in the classic X-Men series and how it could apply to RPGs. In it I only went to the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga, but I recently reread all I have of the X-Men[1] and decided to expand out to issue 200 (or about 10 years of Clairmont writing the book). To bring new people up to speed, the X-Men story is driven by both internal and external conflicts, making it a really good model for a group interested in role playing between the PCs as well as the usual fights against costumed bad guys.
Last time round I explored the first 42 issues of the books run, taking it through three major story arcs, the first tightly focused with the foreshadowing of the overarc, the second a set of more personal stories where the overact moved from foreshadowing to subplot, and the third where the overarc came to fruition with a last act reveal of the actual big bad as opposed to the still potent big bad feint.
An obvious question is whether the next arc was going to be tightly plotted or personal stories. The answer is the latter, more or less. One advantage of the original overarc is that the creators had a lot of previous X-Men history to draw on, but now while they haven’t exhausted that vein they’ve certainly reduced it some. So arc four is not just personal stories but also the introduction of new ideas to plan for the future (as well as closing out some older threads).
To wit: the longest thread of this arc is a turning point for Magneto – he implements an actual plan for world dominion and, while trying to stop the X-Men’s interference, nearly kills their newest, youngest, most innocent member in Kitty Pryde, making him realize that he had now gone so far as killing the very people for whom he claims to be saving the world. Clairmont did a great 5 issue foreshadow to subplot to main plot for this story and it pays off – the X-Men/Magneto relationship undergoes a drastic change.
In addition we also are introduced to: a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants as an adversary, a foreshadowing of the Morlocks (mutants outcasts living in the tunnels under NYC) and a dystopian future where mutant hunting Sentinel robots control the United States (the Days of Future Past story). Clairmont seriously fleshes these out over the next several years. We also see that the Hellfire Club is still kicking around and have started building Sentinels.
Now, based on this what I’d expect to see is another tight arc – one involving the alien Shiar Empire from the first arc if we want to have some nice thematic growth – where the overarc – likely something showing our movement towards the DoFP sentinel story – gets foreshadowed, then another personal growth, short story arc with the overarc as a subplot, then the overarc with the Sentinels deployed as weapons followed by the last act war against the sentinels to prevent some version of the DoFP timeline. The pattern is there and the tools are available. Let’s see….
The next arc is tightly plotted and has the Shiar all over it! The X-Men try to prevent a coup in the Shiar Empire and, while they save the Earth from destruction are taken by the Brood – some lovely icky, Alien-inspired bad guys whose implanted eggs don’t burst out of your stomach but instead turn you into a Brood! Since the transformed Brood keep the host’s ‘genetic potential’ (i.e. mutant powers) their interest in the X-Men is completely logical, the story unfolds with a nice sense of psychological horror, and an up-powered ally saves the day through a big old deus ex machina ala Phoenix saving the universe at the end of the first arc. Best of all there’s a great foreshadowing through the whole 12 issue arc for a great twist “monster jumps up one last time” ending. This arc really does deserve a lot of love.
And what’s happening in the background? The Brother-hood[2] is infiltrating the government via Mystique’s secret identity as a high level DARPA bureaucrat. In the X-Men’s sister book, New Mutants, we learn that companies controlled by the Hellfire Club are under contract to the government to build the new generation of Sentinels[3]. While this is going on the X-Men, who used to have a connection with the CIA and whose first missions for both the old and new teams were saving military bases, are now erasing their records from Pentagon databases and cutting ties. It looks like things are on course for a combination of Brotherhood and Hellfire Club manipulation of the government & military industrial complex to bring about the Sentinel future.
Next arc should be smaller personal stories: and lo, it opens up with a slice of life issue, Wolverine goes to Japan for his 4 issue limited series, the Morlocks make their first proper appearance and the X-Men visit Japan again to fight Viper and Silver Samurai[4]. And look: tying together this whole arc is Mastermind trying to make the team think Cyclops’ girlfriend is actually Dark Phoenix! Holy Kittens! The subplot in Arc 2 and 3 is Mastermind messing with the X-Men and here the main plot thread in Arc 6 is the same thing! And it works! Perfectly foreshadowed and subplotted over 7 issues before the payoff! Plus Cyclops is away from the team but we follow his romantic relationship because it ties to the arc plot, just like we did in Arc 4 – another thematic repeat! For anyone who says that Clairmont was always in the subplot kudzu this flat out disproves it: as of right now this is a tightly plotted book.
And in the background we see more fore-shadowing of the dystopian future when Congress discusses the Mutant Affairs Control act and more evidence of the Brotherhood/ Mystique messing with the government! We’re on track!
Now on to Arc 7: Now, there’s a natural urge here to stretch things out: arc 6 ends on issue 176, and ideally the big DoFP Sentinel battles that we’ve been gearing up for should climax on issue 200 – and not just because the last Sentinel fight occurred in issue 100. Plus, this is a big complex plot with four major players – the X-Men, the Brotherhood, the Hellfire Club, and (as we shall see) Magneto all converging on one spot. I understand the urge to indulge in arc length. The 3rd Arc with Dark Phoenix took 16 issues, this one will take 24. That’s one hell of an arc, so maybe two smaller ones? Let’s see what they do.
We have a very promising intro – we get some time with GM-fave villain Arcade[5] and before the Brotherhood makes a play to get Rogue back. Her unwillingness to return[6] marks a change in the dynamic between the groups[7]: we’re seeing the foundation of an “all mutants together” ethos that could play very well in the last act of the Sentinels. The Morlocks reappear too, as the GM keeps his whole mutant cast visible. The Secret Wars[8] occur here, but the interruption to the arc is all but non-existent: in fact, during the Secret Wars Magneto and Xavier come to terms and Magneto becomes more of a troubled hero than a villain. Rogue, isolated from the rest of the team, succumbs to her persona issues and raids the Shield Heli-Carrier to rescue Carol Danvers ex-boyfriend, where she is framed for a death by a Hellfire Club sleeper agent.
The US government goes ballistic at the attack and kicks anti-mutant weapons development into gear. Mystique’s attempts to capitalize on this a indispensible as a provider of weapons tech via an inventor named Forge spin out of control when she is cut out of the loop and the DOD take Forge’s prototypes to use against her daughter, Rogue. Their attack misses its mark and instead hits Storm, stripping her of her powers and, ultimately, denying the X-Men their field leader (since Cyclops got married and, for the first time, we’re not following him even while he’s away). You can see things the unforced errors mount up as the DoFP looms.
In the middle of this Rachel, a mutant from the DoFP timeline, arrives in the present in another attempt to make that future not happen, not realizing that her timeline is already impossible, but its echo is fast approaching. Plus, as the parallel-universe-future child of Cyclops and Phoenix with her mom’s power set it’s yet another Phoenix echo. And what happens to her when she arrives?
She starts being hunted by a telepath/sorceress/life-draining immortal named Selene from a long lost Roman colony in the Amazon. Excuse me but… WTF?
I bow to no one in my love of comic book weirdness, and I thought that the introduction of Nova Roma in the middle of the Amazon was cool, with a good chance of being to the New Mutants that the Savage Land was to the X-Men, with Selene maybe filling a Magneto role (as Magneto often operated out of the Savage Land). Now, I don’t like Selene: she’s an irritating “I’m insanely powerful but no one had heard of me before” villains, but at least she was from a lost world, which breaks the curse a bit. However, having her move to New York, and start hunting a future telepath to make her an enslaved apprentice I, well, dumb. Worse, it has nothing to do with the plot that has been building.
Now, by classic beat structure this wouldn’t be a bad time for a couple issues of unconnected threats to let things calm down a bit. We get them, but in the form of Dire Wraiths – alien shape-shifter sorcerers who have been mounting a secret invasion of Earth in the comic Rom – attack Forge and Storm to destroy his inventions. And we learn that Forge is not just a mutant inventor but, because he is a Cheyenne, is also a Shaman of considerable power[9]. So the X-Men turn up and beat off magical aliens for a while.
Immediately after that Selene returns, somehow wrangling an invitation to join the Hellfire Club and making another play to capture Rachel and, in a lot of ways, derailing and further neutering the Hellfire Club, an organization that has gone from being big behind the scenes movers & shakers to a stepping stone of a flavor-of-the-month villain. Ordinarily an inclusion of the hellfire Club or a focus on the DoFP Refugee would advance the Sentinel storyline but this one doesn’t accomplish anything.
This is followed by two more unconnected threat issues with Kulan Gath, an old Conan villain that Clairmont used in Marvel Team-Up[10] in what should’ve been a wicked cool story[11]: Gath turns the island of Manhattan into a fantasy universe. Everyone’s involved in this, but who stops him? Warlock, a techno alien member of the New Mutants and… Selene! And more Magic/ Technology mix! The issue after this is another unconnected threat in the arrival of Magus, Warlock’s father and ultimately a New Mutants villain[12].
Clearly now the decision on length is three small 8 issue arcs, where the closing act of the overarc is treated as its own overarc, and this middle act, the place to break away from the main story for a bit, is all magic to set things up for later. Fair enough, but it just feels out of place (especially since magic wasn’t a big force in X-Men) and too frantic to read like the other personal growth arcs[13]. Not only is 8 issues short for personal growth, the plots are all running around/big fight/ end of the world, unlike the other arcs. Plus Selene hunting Rachel did a lot to derail her role as a harbinger of the future.
Things do look like they have potential for the build up to issue 200, as issue 193 has Thunderbird, a member of the Hellions and younger brother to a deceased X-Man of the same name, kidnap former X-Man Banshee and hide him in the same military installation the X-Men saved in issue 93, when the team started and when the original Thunderbird died. It’s a great tragic setup, where a child meddling with things he doesn’t understand the final pebble in the horrific chain of events that we’ve been foreshadowing to for three arcs. The Hellfire Club and the Brotherhood, in their hubris, have given the government everything they need to make the killer Sentinels of the DoFP era. All the mutant organizations are in disarray – the X-Men have an untested field leader, the Hellions students aren’t following orders and of the Brotherhood only Mystique and Destiny are free.
Only it doesn’t happen. Things with the government just get a little more tense; the uber-sentinel Nimrod from the DoFP era who appeared at the end of the Kulan Gath story becomes another “I’m so tough I can take on the whole team and kick the tar out of established ‘I’m so tough I can take on the whole team[14]’ villains and then teleport away when threatened” villain. The Morlocks continue to make trouble. Xavier has problems with his college students. Arcade comes back again. The Brotherhood are freed and made a govt sponsored Mutant registration task force[15], and their actions get Magneto, who is now working with the X-Men, before an international court where he is exonerated (and attacked by the mutant children of the old leader of Hydra!)[16] Xavier is wounded and goes into space with the Shair to recover. Magneto takes over Xavier’s school[17]. Rather than the foreshadowed climax we just muddle along. A lot of this is a fine whine, but imagine how good things could have been if the Sentinel plot played out as I described?
OK, so I blathered for 2 and a half pages, but what’s the take away for gaming? A few of things:
First, have a good editor. X-Men and Clairmont got caught in the subplot kudzu right after Louise Jones left as editor and Ann Niocenti took over. I can’t see this as coincidence. Jones, I imagine, kept the plot focused and kept the writer on track. Unfortunately as GM you don’t have an external editor, so you have to learn to take you cool ideas and set them aside until they fit the theme of your current arc. Which, of course, means paying some sort of attention to both themes and arcs, something you really need to do if you want your game to feel like a comic book. If it doesn’t fit the theme set it aside, come back to it later. Learn to Delay Gratification! This is the biggest problem I see with GMs in Supers Games, where the huge character developments are all pushed into the first story arc before the character really has a chance to develop. You have time. Use it!
Second, take a good look at your returning villains and know what they’re for. The Shiar Empire is used to summon a half a dozen or so issues of space opera with no connection to Earthly affairs. The Mutant teams of the Hellfire Club, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Morlock are each reflections of what the X-Men could be if they used their powers secretly for personal gain, if they used them create & manipulate fear in human society or if they accepted being outcasts with no hope of fitting in to humanity. All have their reasons for acting as they do, and over time you can even sympathize with them, well some of them, sometimes. But they’re not irrational.
Magneto is, like the mutant teams, a reflection of what the X-Men, or more precisely what Xavier, could be. He’s the easy way out, the end-justifies-the-means, the man with the noble motives. He started as Xavier’s dark reflection but one who could be redeemed. Marvel is a big fan of these sorts of villains, and of giving them shots at redemption. If you want your game to have that Mighty Marvel Magic, think about putting one in.
Sentinels are essentially how humanity fights mutant-kind. They’re what awaits if the X-Men fail to thread the needle and make the world accept mutants as being, well, human.
For the other returning villains, Arcade's real purpose is to isolate the X-Men for a few issues at a time while subplots develop, and for the GM to indulge in a love of deathtraps in a book that by and large has no use for that particular genre convention. Juggernaut, by contrast, was once motivated by his hatred of his step brother Xavier, and then by his partnership with Black Tom Cassidy, who hated Banshee, but by the end of his fourth direct or implied appearance in the book he had mellowed to a foe the X-Men fought because he was a foe the X-Men fought, with no overwhelming animus. Again, he’s a filler villain, but one that generally involves hitting a lot of things.
The last villains are your one-shots: be they foes who are cats paws for someone else, ponies with one trick (usually in some strange world or place), or main villains on loan from someone else’s book, you aren’t saddled with the need for them to be rational or empathetic – frothing at the mouth madmen, demonic alien invaders or any other thing, since if they ever return it will be as another round of one-shot villainy. These are what you’re going to use to fill time, they’re the monsters of the week, and like any good MotW they need to hook the PCs quickly and resolve fairly cleanly.
Next, know your foils: Alpha Flight exists to highlight Wolverine and occasionally fight the PCs; Beast is there to be the accepted mutant who risks his social standing to assist his less reputable fellows; Angel is a teammate just to highlight how much Wolverine has improved since his first appearance by complaining about how far he still has to go. Kitty’s dance instructor Stevie Hunter is a foil for Storm’s relationship with Kitty. Her friend Doug Ramsey is a foil for Kitty’s romance with Peter. Foils are NPC tools to show how great or flawed the PCs are, or to bring out those flaws or ideals. It never hurts to have them around for the slice of life sessions – which you will need because any game is better if the PCs are given a chance to breathe and stretch some.
Finally, we have your strange new worlds: most hero teams have places outside the norm that they end up returning to. For the X-Men it’s the Shiar Empire and the Savage Land[18], a nice paring of high tech space opera and low tech dinosaurs. In any event these places let you highlight other facets of the characters – maybe the normal rules of comic book morality are loosened (i.e. Wolverine gets to use his claws on things), maybe their social weaknesses become irrelevant, whatever. Usually tied to a villain, they either come into play whenever the villain shows up or are so compelling that you keep using them with new villains (or just for exploration). In most cases they represent a break from the regular plots and serve the same purpose as Arcade – they keep the heroes happily out of the way while the larger problems brew in the background.
There are some things I’m not getting into here, such as the way that Clairmont handled inter-team conflict, since in a game those decisions would be much more the players than the GMs. Players can learn a lot about how to work together to build these sorts of PC to PC relationships, but I’m focused on the GM takeaways. As usual, if you want your game to feel like your source material it doesn’t hurt to study that source material to see how it ticks.
[1] Sold my originals some time ago and replaced up through issue 198 with the Essential X-Men compilations.
[2] Who stupidly attacked a US Senator last arc for suggesting that Mutants are a threat to humanity; this kinda gets glossed over by later events….
[3] To my mind moving much of the Hellfire Club events to New Mutants was an error. I understand the desire for the new Mutants to have opposite numbers in the Hellions, and the nice symmetry of the good telepath’s school vs. the evil telepath’s school, but moving the Sentinel Building stuff out of the X-Men makes it harder to follow, and at this remove kind of neuters the Club.
[4] whom Clairmont’s used as go to villains since the Marvel Team-Up of Spider-Man & the Not Ready for Prime Time Players
[5] Who shows up every 20 or 30 issues without fail. Clairmont loves this guy, and his shtick isolates the PCs in events that have no outside world bearing while subplots percolate. Handy, that!
[6] She;s looking for help with the fact that she’s permanently absorbed Carol Danvers/Binary’s memories.
[7] just as the rough respect between the New Mutants and Hellions is changing the X-Men/the Hellfire Club dynamic
[8] This is Marvel’s first all-continuity crossover where major heroes and villains were yanked away from Earth for a while.
[9] As is his shotgun wielding, badass Cheyenne medicine man mentor who is alas possessed by one of the evil alien gods of the Dire Wraiths who will be the big bad in about 3 years.
[10] Spider-Man teams up with Red Sonja of all people.
[11] Which I gladly stole for the Revolution, thank you.
[12] Warlock. Magus. More techno-magic. Huh?
[13] To make all of this worse there’s also six issues of the Kitty Prude and Wolverine limited series. The initial Wolverine limited series advanced the character and fit seamlessly into continuity. This one is a six issue waste that just muddies things further.
[14] Who would have guessed that Juggernaut would be reduced to a “guy who gets beaten up to show how big the threat is” NPC?
[15] Doesn’t anyone remember how they tired to assassinate a US Senator on the floor of the capitol and on national TV? Hmmmm? Freedom Force my tuchus – these should be Sentinels!
[16] Hu-wah? Ok, they were kinda foreshadowed but… Hu-wah?
[17] Actually I like this part, as they did a lot of ground work to get Xavier and Magneto back on the same page re mutant rights.
[18] And maybe Japan, which they go back to regularly.
