A Charlie Xavier Thanksgiving
It’s gotta be rough to be an X-Man during the holidays. At least before the latest Krakoa era with its resurrections and terraformings and whatnot, there must’ve been some rough times. The holidays are already pretty tough on a lot of people, fraught with pressure and emotional obstacle courses. And then, if you’re a superhero, there’s a high probability that some villainous schmuck is going to come along and mess up the big day. And THEN on top of all of that, the X-Men are basically in an eternal situation of things being bad, people being taken over by other people, aliens infesting them, and an unusually common cycle of deaths and rebirths. But something as pleasant as a marriage proposal or Thanksgiving dinner can escape this shadowy pall, right? January 1994’s Uncanny X-Men #308 offers a resounding “almost!”
Written by longtime X-Men scribe (and creator of the HAPPY DEATH DAY franchise) Scott Lobdell and drawn by legendary John Romita, Jr., this issue is probably famous for being the one where Scott and Jean get engaged (spoiler alert). Of course, that was before the two went into the future to raise Cable, and then Scott fell for Emma Frost, and then Jean died again, and then a younger version of her came from the past, and then her usual adult self returned, and then and then…Perhaps their marital bliss isn’t as promising in retrospect as it was when this was published. But for our purposes, we’ll mostly look at this issue for the fact that it’s a Thanksgiving issue filled with autumnal activities including a large feast that is basically a button on the entire story.
The day, and issue, starts off innocently enough with a stroll through some dead leaves. This basically lets the reader know that it’s going to be a chillout installment of the X-Men. Which, to be fair, tend to be some of the best to read. It’s like how the party scene in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is the best part of that movie—just having folks hang about and interact reveals a lot of personality and is a nice change of pace from all the sturm AND the drang. Scott and Jean are enjoying their saunter and doing the annoying couple thing of trying to figure out what the faces each are making mean. Which, in itself is cute, except one of them is a massively powerful telepath and can pretty much know exactly what’s going on in the other’s mind. But hey, pretending is fun.
It’s probably worth noting that this follows the “Fatal Attractions” crossover event in which the X-Men were mourning Illyana Rasputin (don’t worry, she got better), so then Magneto attacks in full force with his new Asteroid M and Acolytes, then a grief stricken Colossus defects to the evil camp (he also got better), and there’s a full fledged fight that found Wolverine having all of the metal horrifically removed from his body (he got better too, then died, then got better again), and Magneto killed (needless to say, he got better, and died again, and then better…you get it). It was a very turbulent time in the X-Men world with all sorts of sadness and badness happening. What better way to deal with this trauma than a casual stroll through the massive private grounds of Xavier’s estate?
Another thing, and then I swear we’ll earnestly dive into this issue: Charles Xavier absolutely used his power to make money, right? Like I know it’s stated that it was all a family inheritance from his dead parents or whatever, but come on, people. He built a superjet, an alien rumpus room, and owns massive tracts of land in upstate New York—I don’t care how low the estate tax was, he would’ve run out of money like a full two Juggernaut attacks ago. Unless…does he have life insurance on each of his X-Men? That would probably be a very lucrative investment. Pretty sneaky and definitely dark, Charles.
Anyways, the two dullest lovebirds in the history are ambling around the sprawling grounds of Xavier’s School For The Gifted. There’s a lot of diving into classic X-Men territory as they rehash their relationship from the 1960s X-Men comics to today (1994), which for them is the equivalent of about a decade or so. The time dilation of comics is really weird, made more so by the fact that these holiday issues occur. How many Thanksgivings have they had in those ten years? 20? 30? Never mind the birthdays—my god, the birthdays! They pack a lot of life into those decades.
While they are traipsing about and enjoying that crisp fall day, they are also taking a walk down memory lane of their awkward first days at Xavier’s mansion (see: palatial estate earned through ways unscrupulous and disturbing) and then their many adventures through the years (with an awkward pause around that time Jean committed a bit of a genocide). Luckily we are interrupted by all of this “previously on” chatter with the arrival of everyone’s favorite furry blue ball of awesome and the terrific-but-quasi-racist-when-you-think-about-it character we love, Beast and Jubilee.
This sudden and welcomed intrusion in the maudlin memories of Scott and Jean brings a great splash of color against the autumnal backdrop of beiges, greens, and oranges, letting Hank and Jubilation really stand out in their fun sunglasses that only “way cool people” wear. Jubilee’s shades should’ve taken off in real life. Can we get someone on that? I’ve seen approximations, but none look particularly good. If we could get someone to design an actually cool interpretation of those glasses, then I think we’d have something. Next stop would, of course, be designing blindingly yellow jackets and hoodies…but one thing at a time.
This incursion of fun lets the reader drift away from the bland wanderings of Scott and Jean to check in with the other X-Men on the grounds. There’s Banshee, Storm, and Forge who are raking (Forge even has a very tech-looking rake, which is pretty hilarious); Iceman is supposed to be helping but is instead building piles of those leaves into fake Dr. Doom figures for Beast to plow through; Bishop simply doesn’t understand any shenanigans or really anything that isn’t future mutant holocaust; and Gambit and Rogue are just there and flirting with their truly awful (yet distinctly different!) Southern accents. But it’s all a precursor to the best bit: mutant football! Not to be confused with the ‘90s video game Mutant League Football. Yes, that was really a thing.
Again, this is delightful in the stepping away from the usual superhero antics and melodrama. Make no mistake, all that “capes & crying” stuff will always be the main draw for X-Men, with the drama of their soap opera relationships rivaling the stakes of some planetary threat. But these pauses to refresh are welcomed affairs. It’s reminiscent of Chris Claremont’s baseball games for the X-Men, or the annual baseball game between the Avengers and the West Coast Avengers. Bring those to the silver screen, Feige!
It’s nice to see Lobdell chose a better sport to highlight. Also nice to see? The game ends with everyone “accidentally” tackling Charles in his wheelchair. That serves him right for all the ill-gotten gains he’s made from taking out exorbitant life insurance policies on all his “students” (yes, I’m running with this theory).
It’s an enjoyalbe interlude for charming character moments as they trade banter and barbs. That’s why MCU films do well, by the way; I get people hate the jokes, but it’s that dialogue amidst the action that reveals who these characters are and make them more relatable than just big punching machines or CGI creatures. But the time for charming is over as it’s back to the bland that fun forgot with Scott and Jean. Luckily this is all leading somewhere as Jean asks Scott to marry him. Whaaaaaa? A lady…asking…a MAN…to marry HER?!?
To be fair, it’s not treated through such gender roles, but mostly through Scott being like “I’ve asked you before and you turned me down. Hard.”
In Jean’s defense, Scotty, that was not long after you were banging Jean’s clone. So, you know, maybe some allowances should be made for her to be in a better headspace. Also nice job couching it with “I asked you to marry me almost…” Does “almost” count in marriage proposals? I think you either propose or you don’t, there’s no weird backdoor option where you can just go “psych!” and move on. But I could be wrong—let me know on social media, true believers!
So they agree to it and all that’s left now is the turkey and everyone else wearing their way too big attire. Romita, Jr., is ridiculously talented but his clothes always look funky. Superhero costumes look great through his pen. But regular outfits? Not so much. Look at Scott’s jacket above. He looks like he’s trying out to be the Great Pumpkin in that gigantic puffy monstrosity. Sure, you can excuse all of the bike shorts and lycra in the previous panels because these folks are used to wearing spandex. Plus it was the ‘90s and it is arguably appropriate athletic wear for the time. Given the year, we should just be happy that Liefeld wasn’t present to make everyone have ridiculous number of pouches while playing football. Don’t think he wouldn’t do it! But these fashions are not great and they are rendered even worse. Everyone is serving like they’re extras who just stepped off the set of BABY BOOM or some unfortunate HELLRAISER sequel. Not a good look.
And so the story ends with Scott and Jean telling people that after 30 years of courtship, they’ve gone from almost engaged to engaged. What a paradigm shift. Their friends are happy for them. Well…most of them. Because here is how the issue ends, with Xavier’s take on the whole situation:
What the hell is wrong with you, Charles? This is literally the best news this group has had in years. YEARS. There’s a mutant ravaging disease out there, people are dead, others are horribly wounded, mutant hatred is at an all time high, let’s not forget whatever Shi’ar mishigas is happening that week…take the W, dude. And it’s not like these crazy kids are rushing into anything. At the most charitable, it’s been ten years (it could be as much as 30 but we’ll go with ten)—I think they’ve put in the time to consider these things. Maybe this is meant as a jealous callback to when Xavier had the hots for his TEENAGE STUDENT, Jean Grey. But in any case, it’s not a good look, my man.
Speaking of looks, and inspired by the title of this post, how has Marvel not made a comic or cartoon short using the X-Men to parody A CHARLIE BROWN THANKSGIVING? A bald protagonist who is constantly put upon surrounded by a group of misfits as he tries to coordinate a meal around their specific talents and needs. You make Wolverine the Snoopy character and maybe Lockheed is the Woodstock stand in and BOOM—you’re printing money. C’mon, Internet—make this animation. Then I’ll be as rich as Xavier has become off the backs of all those dead kids.
Huh. Weird note to end on. Just like the issue! For that, above all else…I am grateful.
Happy thanksgiving, everyone?