Marvel Immersion Project: Uncanny X-Men #134-138

This week's run includes the Dark Phoenix Saga and, arguably, the most significant death in the Marvel Universe.  While Gwen Stacy's death is more important from an industry perspective, Jean Grey's is more impactful in-story.  

It's also a shame.  Without a doubt, Jean Grey/Phoenix had become the most interesting character in the Claremont/Byrne X-Men saga.  Female characters in general rose to prominence with Jean leading the way.  Was her death a narrative necessity, making room to develop the newer characters?  Did the Scott/Jean romance need to end in order for the broader story to move forward?  Maybe.

It's comic books so she comes back.  Eventually.  It's still a shame in the short term.

My Recent Reads

Uncanny X-Men #134

Originally Published June 10, 1980

Writers: Chris Claremont and John Byrne

Artist: John Byrne

via Marvel Database

• Cyclops isn't really dead.  Phew!
• The X-Men finally overcome the Hellfire Club and, more importantly, Jean Grey frees herself from Jason Wynegarde/Mastermind's psychic control.
• But Jean's evolution continues in disturbing directions.  She's back on the X-Men side but there's still more than a touch of evil lurking within her, perhaps even growing.  When she breaks free of Mastermind, she basically performs a brutal, psychic lobotomy on him.
• On the final page, Jean reveals herself as Dark Phoenix and the X-Men's hovercraft, transporting them all back to New Mexico, explodes in midair.

Uncanny X-Men #135

July 10, 1980

Claremont and Byrne/Byrne

via Marvel Fandom

• The X-Men survive the explosion but Dark Phoenix still kicks the snot out of them.  
• Dark Phoenix is far more powerful and far more dangerous than anyone, least of all Jean, suspected.  Dark Phoenix flies out into outer space.  She gets hungry.
• She enters and devours an entire star, sending it into supernova.  The 5 billion inhabitants of the surrounding planets are all killed instantly.
• Oh, boy...

Uncanny X-Men #136

August 1, 1980

Claremont and Byrne/Byrne

via Amazon

• The Shi'ar, led by Empress Lilandra, are understandably alarmed by the whole solar system annihilation scene.  They are determined to destroy Dark Phoenix.
• Dark Phoenix returns to Earth where Jean Grey's family and her fellow X-Men must come to terms with the new and terrifying powers she possesses.
• Dark Phoenix battles the X-Men.  Crucially, Xavier duels her psychically and with the human side of Jean Grey's help, manages to suppress Dark Phoenix, at least for the moment.
• At the end of the issue, all of the X-Men are mysteriously transported away.

Uncanny X-Men #137

September 1, 1980

Claremont and Byrne/Byrne

via Marvel Database

• The X-Men appear on a Shi'ar starship, many light years away from Earth.  
• Empress Lilandra declares that Dark Phoenix must die.
• The X-Men object, naturally.  But then, Lilandra tells the story of the genocide exacted against the D'Barians, the inhabitants of the worlds destroyed in #135.  
• Now, everyone is conflicted.  Where does Dark Phoenix end and Jean Grey begin?  Are they even separable?  Can Jean fairly be held accountable?  The Shi'ar say yes.  The X-Men are prepared to fight on her behalf.
• Xavier demands a duel of honor between the X-Men and the Imperial Guard to determine Jean/Dark Phoenix's fate.
• In the midst of the battle, which the X-Men are clearly losing, Jean transforms into the the terrible Dark Phoenix.  The X-Men have no choice but to turn against her.
• Jean demands that they destroy her but the X-Men refuse to do so. 
• Left with no other choice, she turns a laser cannon upon herself and dies.

Uncanny X-Men #138

October 10, 1980

Claremont and Byrne/Byrne

via Amazon

• The story begins with X-Men old and new standing over the grave of Jean Grey.
• Most of the issue is devoted to Scott recounting a thorough X-Men history up to that point.  I've seen such issues in other series, too.  While my initial reaction is always that they're unnecessary, I must remind myself that accessing these stories in 2020 is a lot easier than it would have been in 1980.  Now, it's literally all at my fingertips.  Then, I would have been limited to what was currently sitting on the rack at the grocery store.  Back issues would have required a bit more work.  So, an occasional catchup issue was essential.
• Important development happens on the last page of the issue: Scott Summers leaves the X-Men at the same moment Kitty Pride arrives at the mansion.  One story ends just as a new one begins.  Such is life.

Star Trek: The Offspring

Episode: "The Offspring"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 3, Episode 16

Original Air Date: March 12, 1990

via Memory Alpha

Data becomes a father.  He has built an android with a positonic brain like his own, transferring some of his own neural pathways to the new entity.  He names her Lal and he claims her as his daughter.

The news is shocking to Data's friends.  Picard is initially appalled that he wasn't consulted before Data embarked on the project.  Data defends his rights as a sentient being seeking to procreate and in time, the captain accepts Data's point of view.  The higher powers at Starfleet take a bit more convincing.

"The Offspring" is my favorite episode.  Lal's lightning quick journey from birth to emotional being to demise is amusing, touching, frustrating, inspiring and ultimately heart-breaking.  The final exchange between Data and Lal is one of the most moving passages in the entire franchise:

Lal: I love you, father.

Data: I wish I could feel it with you.

Lal: I will feel it for both of us... thank you for my life.

Data stories tend to do well in best episode rankings.  I have to admit they don't always work for me.  No matter the shifting dynamics around him, Data is a static character.  Others grow from the experience.  He learns but is ultimately unchanged.  "The Offspring" is an exception.  Data is always reaching to be more human and this is the story in which I feel he comes closest to reaching it, or at least appreciating the value in the aspiration itself.  Are wishing to love and loving really so different?  Yes, they are.  But the wish is a huge step forward.  In the end, Data physically embeds aspects of Lal's experience into his own brain.  In effect, he grows.

The episode is important for a couple of behind the scenes personnel reasons.  It is the first episode directed by Jonathan Frakes.  While I like to poke fun at Frakes's handsome woodenness on-screen, he has been both successful and effective behind the camera.  He is one of only two people - and the only cast member - to direct both a TV episode (22 of them, actually) and a movie (2).  "The Offspring" was an awfully good start.

"The Offspring" is also the writing debut for Rene Echevarria.  It was the beginning of a long association for Echevarria, a writer, producer and story editor for numerous TNG and DS9 episodes.  Not coincidentally, he has written several of the episodes I like best.  He brought a broad emotional range to Star Trek with ripples felt well into the current century.

Acting Notes

via Disney 23xo Wiki

Hallie Todd (Lal) was born Hallie Jane Eckstein, January 7, 1962 in Los Angeles, California.  She was born into a show biz family.  Her mother, actress Ann Morgan Guilbert, would be familiar to fans of The Dick Van Dyke Show.  

via Wikipedia

In fact, mom was pregnant with Hallie during filming of the show, the physical manifestations cleverly hidden through costuming.  Todd's father, George Eckstein, was a writer and producer.  Todd got her training at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts.

Most of Todd's credits have been on television.  She had principal roles on Brothers, Going Places, Life with Roger and Lizzie McGuire.  In addition to Trek, she made guest appearances on Growing Pains, The Golden Girls and Murder, She Wrote.  More recently, she makes films with her husband and daughter, both writers, for their family-owned production company: In House Media Film Partners.

She has also written two books: Being Young Actors and Parenting the Young Actor.

Squid Mixes: Boilermaker

A boilermaker is an easy sell for me.  For starters, it couldn't be simpler to make:  fill a shot glass with whiskey, then drop it in a glass of beer.  I love a whiskey-infused beer - they're made of the same stuff, no reason they shouldn't go together.  Ever had Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale?  That is a beautiful substance!  Oddly enough, we don't own shot glasses - not yet, anyway.  Fortunately, we do have a 1 oz Pyrex glass and it worked just fine.

I have a funny boilermaker story.  As I think I've written before, I got my copy of The New York Bartender's Guide as a gift my senior year of college.  My roommate and I had a lot of fun playing around with the recipes.  For our boilermaker, we used Heineken Dark and Jack Daniels.  When I told my father about it later, he was absolutely horrified.

"So let me get this straight," he said. "You took perfectly good beer and perfectly good whiskey and ruined them by putting them together!"

Oh well, you can't please everyone.

This time, I used von Trapp Brewery's Bohemian Pilsner and Jim Beam Black Bourbon.  I don't know if my father would approve but I thought the combination was lovely.

Marvel Immersion Project: Marvel Feature #12, The Death of Captain Marvel, Uncanny X-Men #132-133

This week, I finally wrap up Captain Marvel before jumping back to the X-Men, picking up right where I left off here.

Overall, the Captain Marvel story is pretty good.  I appreciate the influence on the last two Avengers movies and the culminating graphic novel offers moments of genuine poignancy.  I would say that I appreciate Jim Starlin's stunning artwork more than the narrative itself.  However, I understand the importance of this arc to the Universe as a whole.

My Recent Reads

Marvel Feature #12

Originally Published November 10, 1973

Writer: Mike Friedrich

Artists: Jim Starlin & Joe Sinnott

• The Thing and Iron Man team up to brawl with the Blood Brothers.

"The Death of Captain Marvel"

February 3, 1982

Writer and Artist: Starlin

• Mar-Vell succumbs to cancer, a result of inhaling toxic fumes in his battle with Nitro in Captain Marvel #34.
• This story has a cast of hundreds, both friends and foes alike coming to pay their respects to the fallen hero.  The assembled mourners create a scene not so different from the end of Avengers: Endgame.  

via Marvel Database

• It would be exhausting to list everyone but one character deserves special mention: Elysius, Mar-Vell's longtime lover who holds near constant vigil at his bedside.
• This poignant story brings up a lot of interesting questions about superheroes in general, most importantly: why don't the heroes take on more real-world problems like cancer, poverty, famine, etc.?  Their last-minute efforts aren't enough to save Mar-Vell but perhaps if they'd been working on a cure all along...
• Comic books and the worlds they chronicle are meant to provide an escape for the reader.  It's easier to give the enemy a name and a face than to confront more complicated issues.  Some try, of course: Silver Surfer, for instance.  But the usual, dependable formula doesn't allow much room for it.
• Nonetheless, at least in this story, some of the heroes regret this fact.

Uncanny X-Men #132

April 10, 1980

Chris Claremont and John Byrne/Byrne

• No longer certain of their mansion's security, the X-Men head to New Mexico where they hang out with former X-Man Angel.
• Scott and Jean re-connect atop a desert butte.  Scott discovers that among Jean's new powers is the ability to telekinetically suppress Scott's optic blast.
• The gang heads back to New York to confront the Hellfire Club.  
• Jason Wyngarde regains his psychic control over Jean and introduces her to the rest of the Hellfire Club as their Black Queen.  He also reveals to Scott his true identity as Mastermind, previously only suspected.
• Battles ensue.  Cyclops, Colossus, Storm and Nightcrawler are all captured.  
• Only Wolverine remains free.  As the story ends, he emerges from the sewer below, ready to take on the Hellfire Club all by himself.

via Wikipedia

• This issue is the first appearance for Tessa (aka Sage), though she is yet to be identified as such.

Uncanny X-Men #133

May 1, 1980

Claremont and Byrne/Byrne

• Wolverine battles the Hellfire Club guards.  This is the first issue in which his quick-healing powers are revealed.

via Marvel Database

• First appearance for Senator Robert Kelly.
• Scott attempts to connect with Jean in order to snap her out of Wyngarde's hold over her.  He is foiled by Wyngarde.  The two men duel on an astral plane.
• Wyngarde wins, apparently killing Scott in the process!
• To be continued.

Star Trek: Yesterday's Enterprise

Episode: "Yesterday's Enterprise"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 3, Episode 15

Original Air Date: February 19, 1990

via Memory Alpha

Our Enterprise - Enterprise D - encounters a temporal rift where they meet a ghost ship from the past: Enterprise C.  The chance meeting has dire consequences, shifting D into an alternate history stream in which the Federation is mired in a long and brutal war with the Klingons.  C must be sent back through the rift to its own time 22 years before in order to set things right, even though it probably means certain death for the crew of the C.

Not quite complicated enough?  Tasha's back.  In the alternate history, she's still alive.

This is my third time through The Next Generation.  I feel there are five episodes that stand out above all the others, two from Season 3 and three from Season 5.  "Yesterday's Enterprise" is the first.  Yes, it's completely convoluted and it deals with time travel, something I usually can't stand in a Trek story, and there are holes in the plot and good grief, what is Wesley doing on the Enterprise in the middle of a war?!!!  In the end, none of that matters.  This one works.  Beautifully.  From the moment they enter the alternate stream to the moment they leave it, the narrative flow is outstanding.

Major kudos to the design team.  The set and costumes for the alternate time stream are stunning, reflecting a darker reality, similar to what the original series accomplished with "Mirror, Mirror."  The return of Tasha feels like an unnecessary additional contrivance initially until her confrontation with Guinan on Ten Forward.  Guinan's "You're not supposed to be here" line is an absolute knockout, right up there with Mark Lenard's "In a different reality, I could have called you friend" from "Balance of Terror."  This is why you have Whoopi Goldberg in your cast.

Question: is next week's episode even better?

Food Notes

This brutally serious story does get one moment of levity in the very beginning: the prune juice exchange.

Acting Notes

via SGCommand

Christopher McDonald plays the role of Lt. Richard Castillo, helmsman of the Enterprise C and Tasha's tragic love interest for this story.  McDonald was born February 15, 1955 in New York City.  He graduated from Hobart College.  

McDonald has been a highly successful character actor, appearing in such films as Thelma & Louise, Happy Gilmore and 61*.  In television, he was a regular on Family Law and a recurring character on North Shore, Veronica's Closet and Good Advice.

Bitters of the Month: Peach

Peach bitters, compared to others we've tried, is surprisingly strong in flavor.  I haven't played around with peach drinks much - surprising in light of the fact fuzzy navels were what launched my interest in mixed drinks back in the day.  As we shall see, later in the month (Spoilers!), peach holds up better in a cocktail than I would originally have thought.

On the Coffee Table: Winning Chess Combinations

Title: Winning Chess Combinations

Author: Yasser Seirawan

via Amazon

Chess combinations are better known to those outside the chess world (self included) as sacrifices.  For example, you sacrifice your queen - the most powerful piece on the board - for a quick checkmate, winning the game.  According to Seirawan, combinations come up in every chess game, whether executed or merely pondered.  As such, learning to see them (for one's self), avoid them (in the case of one's opponents) and recognize favorable conditions for them is essential to chess mastery.  Sounds good to me.

By the author's own admission, this book targets a slightly higher skill level than the others in his Winning Chess series.  I readily acknowledge that most of it was over my head.  I grasped the general principles but merely skimmed most of his deep analysis.  Thank goodness for the final chapter which provided a succinct summary of the highlights of the previous eight.

So, now I am faced with a question: where do I go with chess from here?  There are no more chess books on my overflowing TBR shelves, nor do I have immediate plans to add any.  The truth is, as much as I admire the game, I don't play much.  I play tabletop games all the time - with my wife on weekends plus two groups of friends online during the week - but not chess.  There was an online chess tournament at school over the summer.  I play against a computer occasionally.  But it's been years since I actually sat down at a real chess board with a fellow human being.  

And yet, I truly would love to get better.  Seirawan's books are helpful but I know perfectly well as a musician that what I truly need is practice: regular, structured, rigorous practice.  I could make that happen, and really it wouldn't take much to be better than I currently am.  But there are so many other things I want to do, too.  So, what to do with chess?

For now, it's a rock solid I don't know.