X-Men: Inferno

Posted: Tuesday, October 23
By: Michael Deeley

Writers: Chris Claremont & Louise Simonson
Pencilers: Bret Blevins, Walt Simonson, & Marc Silvestri
Inkers: Hilary Barta, Dan Green, Mike Manley, Al Milgrom, Bob Wiacek, & Al
Williamson

Plot:
What is Plot? What does it mean? My dictionary says: "The plan of events or main story in a narrative or drama. Also, a small piece of ground, a diagram, or a secret plan to accomplish a hostile purpose."

Unless the writers and artists involved with Inferno secretly wanted to frustrate readers and get rich off of it, then none of the above definitions for "plot" could apply to this story.

In (very) brief, here's what Inferno is about: Madelyne Pryor learns that she is a clone of Jean Grey, created by Mr. Sinister to produce a child, her son Nathan. Pryor is already a little unbalanced, since she faked her death, causing her husband, Scott Summers, to leave her. She had joined the X-Men in an elaborate plot to turn them against Scott and his new team X-Factor. Plus, a demon has been awakening her mutant powers as a part of his plan to permanently bind the demon realm of Limbo to Earth. Once Pryor figures out how she's been a pawn in other people's plans, she decides to double-cross everybody, and sacrifice her son, thus forming the bridge to Limbo and ruling the Earth as the Goblin Queen.

Comments:
Let's see if I can accurately describe the experience of reading Inferno. Picture yourself at a race car rally. Each mutant title of the ‘80s, X-Men, X-Factor, and New Mutants, is a car driving along at full speed. Suddenly, the three cars come together and crash. They spin out of control, flipping end over end, flying off the track and through the walls. The cars burst into flames in a thundering fireball that melts their metal bodies together into a twisted black wreck, and roasts the drivers alive. When this flaming, screeching monster finally comes to a halt, firefighters put out the flames and get the jaws of life, knowing full well they are too late to save anybody. When they pry apart the center of the smoldering, creaking death trap, a sudden rush of bubbling, red and pink goo vomits out of the machines. You, and the crowd, stare at it for a full 5 seconds before you slowly realize, "That's what's left of the drivers."

And as you turn away from the liquid remains of those poor men, a voice comes from the deepest, darkest part of your soul saying, "That looked pretty cool." And you feel guilty because a flaming car wreck does look pretty cool, even though three men died to bring you entertainment. And that's when it hits you: Three men died for your amusement. You, and every racing fan there, helped kill three innocent men because you wanted to be distracted for a couple of hours. And as horrible as this tragedy was, there will be another race next week. And you're going to see it. No matter how awful you feel about the whole sick situation, you know it won't stop.

Reading Inferno was like that, except I never thought, "That was pretty cool."

In order to fully understand and appreciate the scope of the events in Inferno, you'll have to read every X-Men comic and spin-off published since Uncanny X-Men #150. Seriously, you will. Inferno is the culmination of the ongoing storylines involving Madelyne Pryor, her marriage to Scott Summers, their child, the apparent death of the X-Men, the return of Jean Grey, the formation of X-Factor, Mr. Sinister, the Marauders, Magik, the demons of Limbo, and a new team of pre-teen mutants called X-Terminators. For the short version, you could pick up the Magik mini-series, the X-Terminators mini-series, the trade books Mutant Massacre and Phoenix Rising, the entire Fall of the Mutants crossover, volume four of Essential X-Men, and the 6 months of New Mutants and X-Factor that immediately precede this story.

Or, you can NOT BUY THE BOOK!

This mess is so disorganized, I pity the poor editors who had to arrange it all into a trade book. Even at 200+ pages, some holes in the story are left wide open. For example, the issues of New Mutants included here come at the end of the "Magik Saga". Illyana "Magik" Rasputin, the tortured teen-aged queen of Limbo, confronts the dark side of herself as she is used in a demon invasion of New York City. Reading these few issues, I got the feeling this was the end of a long, hard journey of self-discovery and suffering for Illyana. I was happy to see it end with her regression into an innocent little girl, though I wish I could've seen the early stages of her journey into darkness.

There are several references to the X-Terminators mini-series which, of course, is not included here. The reader is left puzzled as to who these kids are, how mutant babies worked into this invasion, and what happened to that kid fighting the demon lord N'Astirh. N'Astirh, incidentally, was involved with the X-Factor adventure that preceded Inferno. There's also something to do with a techno-organic virus, and how it turns N'Astirh into a living computer fuelled by dark magic spells.

Supposedly, the demon invasion of NYC brings out the worst in everybody, including the X-Men. This results in the X-Men temporarily becoming meaner and crueler, with uglier costumes. For some, the experience changes them permanently. Storm becomes a harsher leader, unafraid to kill when necessary. Havok, formerly plagued by guilt over killing an alien Brood, finds the "strength" to kill an enemy that threatens the people he loves. And Polaris begins and ends the story possessed by an evil mutant called Malice.

By the conclusion of the story, Xavier's mansion is destroyed, Jean Grey absorbs Madelyne's memories and a tiny piece of the Phoenix force, Scott disintegrates Sinister with a fatal eye-blast, and untold numbers of innocents are dead. And this is a happy ending?

This mess could have been prevented by Jim Shooter. If he hadn't insisted that Jean Grey die at the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga, we wouldn't have had Madelyne Pryor. No Pryor, no Goblin Queen, and any plans for Limbo to invade NYC are limited to the New Mutants. No Pryor also means no elaborate plan by Sinister to ruin the X-Men from within, (or at least a better plan with a more original character). We learn here that Madelyne's powers and memories come from a portion of the Phoenix force released by the "death" of "Jean". This same portion is re-absorbed by Jean after Madelyne's death. So Jean once again has this potential for unbridled cosmic power in the back of her mind. (Gosh, remember the good ol' days when life and death were absolutes, and didn't involved clones, alternate timelines, or cosmic entities making copies of people?) In fact, the only positive results of this mess are Illyana turning back into a little girl, and X-Factor finding out the X-Men aren't dead. Whoopee.

As if turning the X-Books into an incomprehensible mess for six months wasn't bad enough, Inferno had crossover tie-ins to other Marvel comics. That's right; An X-Men story got so big, it leaked into Avengers, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and the Spider-Man titles. These books basically saw the New York-based heroes dealing with the demon invasion. None of them were aware of its cause, the X-Men's involvement, or even Madelyne Pryor. Lucky them. For a complete list of Inferno tie-ins, visit The Unofficial Comics Crossover Index on the web. Just enter that title into your browser. It's a fun site in any case.

My favorite Inferno tie-in was Damage Control (Vol. 1) #4. The DC crew traces a series of thefts to the ruins of the X-Men's mansion. This visit helps the crew remember their first visit to the Danger Room, when they and the X-Men fought against an onslaught of robot clowns. Yep, the best Inferno story had nothing to do with any plot lines, came out long after it was over, and took place before it started.

Following the old rule of "every comic is somebody's first comic", Claremont tries his best to bring new readers up to speed about what's going on with lots of in-story explanations and expositions. The result is the thick, clunky dialogue he was criticized for using in his 2000 return to the X-Men. The book quickly goes from an adventure with passion and drama, to an exercise in continuity. Readers are forced to keep reminding themselves of who is where, why they act such a way, and where they've gone.

As for the art, the less said, the better. Al Milgrom isn't a bad inker, per se, he just gets himself involved in bad stories, (Secret Wars II and Kitty Pryde and Wolverine being two infamous examples). And Walt Simonson's work in the ‘80s was far inferior to his work today. The washed-out coloring doesn't help either. And looking at Marc Silvestri's work here begs the question "Why in hell did McFarlane & Co. want him to join them at Image"?

Overall, this was an ugly book to look at, about ugly things making beautiful heroes uglier. The operative word here, people, is "ugly". I thought X-Tinction Agenda was terrible, but at least its story was coherent and well paced. And Zero Tolerance, a crossover with twice as many mutant titles involved was better organized and actually had something to do with THE REASON THE X-MEN EXIST! (Seriously, Zero Tolerance is a decent trade book. Check it out if you find a copy.)

Final Word:
If you haven't bought this book yet, don't. Do not buy this book. It's been through three printings already, and it never got better. Buying it now would just encourage Marvel to publish it again! DO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN! AVOID INFERNO! If you have a copy, BURN IT! BURN INFERNO! BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!!!!!

Oh, and if Bill Rosemann is reading this, where can I send sympathy cards to collections editor Ben Abernathy? I feel for that poor bastard.