It's
Day 30 of a thirty-day month (I had to check that be sure, because it's hard to do that count when you have hooves and not fingers), so here's the finale and the culmination of
Comics Within Comics Month! I hope you've been enjoying these little daily Oreo-sandwich-cookies of reality half as much as I have, and if you've enjoyed them half as much as I have,
why haven't you been enjoying them twice as much so our enjoyment levels match? I lay up nights worrying about these things. Also: snakes.
But before I dip into the final Comics Within Comics, I just wanted to give a tip o' the old Bully-cap to online pal
Graeme Virtue, who only
sounds like a character out of a Garth Ennis comic but who is actually a journalist for my very favorite (honest!) newspaper in the UK,
The Guardian!, which no longer features all the typos that the panels on
I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue attributed to it. (Barry Cryer: "
The Guardian: Yesterday's headline should have read 'Caesar Slayed' not 'Caesar Salad.'") Graeme lives in Glasgow, my favorite Scottish city I've never visited, and someday I shall get up there and buy him a pint, especially since he was so kind to tweet
Jings! Thank you very much, Mister V. This one is dedicated to
you. I'm sorry it's a Gambit story.
Cover of What If...? (1989 series) #100 (September 1997), pencils and inks by Klaus Janson
By this point in Marvel publishing history the Watcher had been unceremoniously booted from his host duties of
What If?, so we're dropped right into the middle of the story which surely must have made sense to those who have read between the lines of every single X-Men title including
Fallen Angels. As I can piece it together, this alternate reality isn't designated in any of the hefty colorful
Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, but I'm gonna dub it
Earth-99709, aka
"The One Where Gambit Does Something Stupid." (Yes, yes, i know...how to distinguish it from all other universes...universii?...is a problem.) As part of his life debt (or was that Chewbacca?) to Mr. Sinister, our ragin' Cajun has collected, gathered, and out and out stolen the Morlocks's "tithe boxe," in which is sealed the Ultimate Secret of the Universe™. I imagine it comes from the same store where Indy got the Ark, where Jules Winnfield got the briefcase with the nifty glowing interior, and that 1964 Chevrolet Malibu repo'd by Otto Maddox came from. Or maybe Amazon.com. Naturally, Rogue and her thirty-five pound hairpiece vow to stop Gambit!
Panels from "Paper Skin" in What If...? (1989 series) #100 (September 1997); co-plot and script by Ivan Velez Jr.; co-plot, pencils, and inks by Klaus Janson, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Chris Eliopoulos
Gambit, of course, big cheaty-pants that he is, refuses to play fair and traps Rogue under a big-ass rock. Golly, Gambit is certainly getting
boulder, isn't he BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA I'm so sorry.
Gambit contemplates possessing the
Ring the Box for himself, which is so powerful that it has
completely erased his inner mental Cajun accent.
Now possessing the Tithe Box, Sinister...well, I'm not really certain what he's doing here, but that fits in just fine with all the rest of his decade long plots to bedevil and baffle and tickle the X-Men, including that time when he made the young orphan Scott Summers go to bed without being able to watch the episode of
Galactica 1980 with Starbuck in it. HE'S EVIL YOU SEE.
Rogue enters, and
WHOA THAT'S NOT ROGUE THAT'S A MAN, BABY. Actually, it's the result of a kiss Rogue and Gambit had after Gambit delivered the box. Rogue's energy-stealing powers sucked (ewwww!) the powers and personality (and apparently he jawline) of Gambit and put it in Rogue, who can now probably call him/herself Rougbit. Or Gamogue. Take your pick. Vowing hir revenge upon Sinister, she attacks him but fails to comprehend the meaning of his words: that they, as Shakespeare put it are as mutant flies to wanton fanboys; they kill and resurrect and re-kill X-Men for their sport. Nope, Rogue doesn't get it...
...until the box falls open and Rogue discovers...
hir reality is just a fiction created by the people who make comics books. What the--?
(And those comic books are...)
Cover of [Peter Parker,] Spider-Man (1990 series) #82 (August 1997), pencils by John Romita Jr., inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Gregory Wright, letters by Richard Starkings
Cover of Maverick (1997 series) #1 (September 1997), pencils by Jim Cheung, inks by Andrew Pepoy
Cover of The Incredible Hulk (1968 series) #455 (August 1997), pencils by Adam Kubert, inks by Jesse Delperdang
Cover of X-Men (1991 series) #66 (August 1997), pencils by Carlos Pacheco, inks by Art Thibert, colors by Liquid Graphics
Cover of Alpha Flight (1997 series) #1 (August 1997), pencils by Scott Clark, inks by Chris Carlson
And of course...
Yeah, I agree: those cover repros in
What If? #100 are
not incredibly detailed. Notice that they took cover images, splashed a single color across them and then plastered the logo on top of it. But look carefully at the shadows and details that
can be seen and you'll find they're all August or September 1997 books. Which you thought were going to be worth mucho moola and you have double-bagged in
your own longboxes, so check 'em out!
Because this is the Mighty Marvel Age of Bountiful Bonuses from Bully, check out this article from
Marvel Vision #21, aka "The
Marvel Age of the 1990s created by someone who couldn't restrain themselves in desktop publishing," detailing the
What If? #100 story! Just be warned, though:
it's about Gambit.
(Click picture to Rogue Has a Headache So Big It's Got Gambit Written All Over It-size)
Welcome to October, which means a new monthly feature as well as this here blog's traditional Octember Countdown to Halloween! Each and every day, at least one Halloween-flavored (mmmm!) post spotlighting comics most scary and spooky denizens (and I'm not just talkin' about Wonder Woman on a bad hair day!) There will be periodic pumpkin-scented editions of our regular features like Ten of a Kind, Today in Comics History and 365 Days of DC House Ads, as well as the Octabulous daily feature at the precise stroke of midnight, Hellmouth: Dell/Gold Key, casting a bloodshot eye on the monster, horror, and Halloweeny covers of the world's greatest comic book company based in Poughkeepsie, New York! What better way to kick off our Countdown to Halloween than with the Monster with the Mostest, the Terror with the Teeth, that Vampire You Desire...Dracula!
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