Uncanny eXplorations: Dave Cockrum

So starting something slightly different from the norm. I've recently started to reread the Essential X-Men volumes that I have. For those unfamiliar, Marvel's Essentials lines are chronological reprintings of old Marvel comic books, printed on cheap news print in black and white to keep the cost down. They offer an incredible value really, especially for anyone who wants to read it "from the beginning."

The X-Men volumes, however, are somewhat confusing in their labeling. The Essential X-men collection actually starts at Giant-Sized X-Men, where the second generation of characters were introduced, including the first appearance of Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus (as well as Thunderbird; he didn't fare so well comparatively.) Of course, the problem is that it skips nearly a decade of X-Men stories before that, including the earliest stuff by Lee and Kirby. So those have also been printed under the title Classic X-Men. The problem with that, being, there actually was a book already called Classic X-Men: a plus-sized book that was half reprints of old adventures, and half behind the scenes moments not original presented in the book. It is probably a better name than the confusing Essential Uncanny X-Men, seeing how the book Uncanny X-Men didn't get the adjective until after Giant Sized.

But I digress. I've decided, reading these old stories, to go through the history of Uncanny X-Men and look at each of the artists who have worked on the book, and specifically discuss the work they did in X-Men. This includes long runs (think Byrne or, in this very article, Cockrum) as well as guest-spots and annuals. Anything and everything that was published under the Uncanny banner.

So lets get started, shall we?


Dave Cockrum: Giant Sized X-Men 1, Uncanny 94-107; No Guest Spots, though Bob Brown finished his work on 106.


Dave Cockrum is the first artist to draw the X-Men after the relaunch of the title, designing the majority of the team that came on in Giant Sized X-Men. After working from a pair of scripts from Len Wein, Cockrum started a year-long run with Wein's assistant, some guy named Claremont, that lasted from issue 95 to 107. Claremont has said in various interviews that early on, he and Cockrum weren't sure what the book was going to be and so they felt a bit more freedom to experiment and see what worked. And it doesn't take much reading to see that they took that freedom to heart.

Giant Sized X-Men, despite introducing some of the most beloved and long-standing X-Men characters, is extremely odd for an x-book. The first half starts familiar enough: Professor X searches for new students for his school (though that plot point is very quickly forgotten) that shall double as new X-Men to help rescue the originals. Lead by Cyclops, naturally, the X-Men head into danger, unsure what they'll find. This where things take a decided left turn, as they battle the Living Island Krakoa, who has vines for veins and tree limbs for...well, limbs.

It is clear that it is these moments that Cockrum is really enjoying himself. There is a dynamic, frantic quality to it. When Cockrum's heroes scream, it is not a righteous battle cry, but a face contorted in horror. They are panicked, unsure and scared for their lives. Cockrum loves drawing monsters and aliens; the more exotic the locale the better. Cockrum always stated a fondness for Kirby's work, and it certainly shows. He relishes in the same excesses and strange perspective of reality that marked Kirby's career.

Even in the quiet, before-the-storm moments of Cockrum's work, there is a very palpable sense of dread and weight. Any time he does a close-up of anyone, it is a treat. Cockrum's human being is sweaty, pourous and quite often anxious. One of the core rules of horror is that terror can strike at any moment, and Cockrum makes it very clear that his heroes are very aware of this inescapable fact. They understand that the calm of their existence is only a brief vacation from the danger of their lives.

Of course, this danger doesn't just come across in the (oddly numerous) monster sequences: the Sentinels are treated as being just as horrific, and a battle with Magneto near the end of this early run is fairly unsettling, with loose debris flying through. During the great moments of horror, panel angels become more jutting and seemingly random. The chaos seeps beyond just the expression of the characters, but into the very page layout itself. Nothing is safe; in the final panel of 97, a double tiered window shot brings this point home very strongly: the X-Men are being observed and tortured, for our amusement. Are you amused?

This all somewhat undercuts the fact that Cockrum is a pretty daring superhero artist, especially for the era these books are being published (1975!). It is easy to see why with Cockrum's dynamic, film-like eye that the book quickly became Marvel's leader, along with Claremont's verbose but addictive writing style. (This isn't a series about Uncanny's writing, mainly because Claremont takes up so much of it, but it interesting to note that Claremont is also much more experimental in his writing style in these early issues. One of his most interesting devices is to have one moment where the unseen narrator actually eggs Scott Summers on to release his frustration.)

When early post-relaunch X-Men books are considered, the Byrne work is often considered the pinnacle, mostly because he did the bulk of the Phoenix cycle. But the tone is set by Cockrum, who immediately establishes that X-Men is a book unlike our superhero tales, where the bets are off and danger is very palpable. Part of the reason his X-Men are so human is that overriding sense of fear, and it sets the stage for the work that Byrne and all following artists do.

Michael Mann's Public Enemies: The Art of Myth Making

WARNING: The review/essay covers the end of Michael Mann's film Public Enemies, only because it relates so strongly to the film's central themes. If you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled, I suggest you stop here, go see the movie and then come back. I will say, spoiler-free, that is excellent and probably Mann's finest film.

The opening scene of Public Enemies sets up rather masterfully the core of the movie itself: the setting is a prison-break at Michigan City, Indiana. The costumes are perfectly recognizable dirty black and white uniforms, trench coats and tommy guns. The energy escalates quickly and boils over. It is a perfectly pitched gangster movie, in the most classic tradition, only now it is shot in crisp, beautiful digital clarity.

For the next two and a half hours, however, Mann will begin to question and pick apart what we just watched. The film is obstensibly about the feud between bank robber John Dillinger and federal lawman Melvin Purvis (played expertly by Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, respectively; Bale especially transcends his usual stone-faced emotionlessness in portions and offers a career-defining performance), as well as how the actions of Dillinger and his fellow cross-country bank robbers led to the rise of the FBI to the institution it is today. But just underneath the surface of the plot, what Mann seems to be playing with is the notion of reality and how our perception is so often distorted by myth.

On one side, there is Dillinger's attempt to control his image in the media by always making sure he steals from banks, not individuals, and paints himself as the full realization of the American dream. Of course, he knows that his persona is merely a creation. At one point he calls banks "the place where all these people put their money"; later, with a gaggle of infatuated newsmen wrapped around his finger, he criticizes his younger self for stealing from a store-owner, again emphasizing that he doesn't steal from people, just institutions. He is a master manipulator, charming and quite often the smartest guy in the room. He looks out for his friends, but also knows that what he does is a business. The only relationship he has that doesn't feel contrived and a matter of control is his love affair with coatgirl Billie Frechette, to whom he promises the world. You almost suspect that Dillinger, for all the charm he has, wants to actually share something with someone, and decides that the person he wants to share with is Billie.

Equally obsessive is the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover, played with breathless exitement by Billy Crudup who only appears in two scenes of the film but hangs over the whole story. Crudup is the one who coins the titular phrase of the film, naming Dillinger "Public Enemy Number One." The Chicago branch of the FBI is turned into the nerve-center of the who operation due to its closeness to organized crime, and eventually it is renamed to "the Dillinger Department." Hoover's "war on crime" (which of course reverse-echos the war on drugs or war on terror, the way that America has developed a habit of declaring war on broad concepts; another myth) turns his g-man from mostly inexperience police officers into broodish thugs, at one point beating Frechette to the point where she can't stand. It is a clear and cutting criticism on the mindset that violence leads to conclusive results.

But in the end, it is neither Hoover or Dillinger who is the master myth maker. The true myth maker is Mann himself, or more broadly, Hollywood. Two of the most vital scenes in Public Enemies take place in movie theatres. The first is near halfway through the film, after Dillinger has been named Public Enemy #1 but before his gang has really started to feel the sting of the law. He sits in a movie theater, with his gang, watching a newsreel. (The newsreel itself is introduced masterfully: a scene where Hoover is posing with some "junior G-men" has Crudup mugging directly into the camera, talking to the audience. Talking to you. As you watch, the scene fades to gray and the sound softens. After several seconds, the camera begins to pull back, revealing a theatre full of viewers, of which you were just one.) As the Newsreel continues, a moment comes up where Dillinger, a real photo, is posted on the screen. The audience is instructed to look to the left, then the right, warned that their enemy could be anywhere. The audience of course does exactly as their told, but no one notices the actual PE#1 among them. As the scene ends, we see Dillinger slowly grin. It is impossible to tell if it a smirk of pride at not being caught, or admiration of Hoover so masterfully using the craft of film.

The other scene in a theatre is the climax of the film. Dillinger, betrayed and doomed to be killed before the traditional "big score" where he is supposed to die, goes to the movies once more. He goes to see Manhattan Melodrama. (It is a strange and unnerving fact of history that this works so perfectly for the narrative Mann tries to tell.) As Dillinger is among the crowd, all fixated on the screen, we spend our time split between watching the movie with him, just over his shoulder, the frame of the theatres screen just slightly tilted in the actual theatre screen, and watching Dillinger's face as he watches the movie. We keep cutting back and forth between Cary Grant and William Powell playing the roles of gangster heavies, wearing the trendy wispy moustaches of the day, only to cut Depp's Dillinger, same wispy moustache, same cool demeanor. The transformation is now complete. Depp is Dillinger is Cary Grant. They are all legends, all something that belongs to the world and more than their simple lives could hold. We are the voyeurs, the observers. Those patrons of film earlier in the film, being told to look to the left and the right, are still being pulled along.

Moments later, Dillinger is killed by three bullets. It is at this point destined, unavoidable. But it is still shocking when it happens. The final bullet actually tears through Dillinger's face, fromt he back through to just underneath his eye. Again, the digital crispness of the moment is captured, an extreme close up of Dillinger's face as he realizes beyond any hope that he is dead. The death recalls the ends of Bonnie and Clyde or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, only Dillinger is alone; the high-arcing shot of the camera being elevated abovet he growing crowd around Dillinger's corpse is almost directly ripped from Chinatown, only now, the good guys have won. This is a moment you've seen before, only the punch is stronger for some reason. Depp and Mann have charmed us into caring about Dillinger, far more than you even realize until you see his eyes gloss over. The myth is over, completed in the only way it could be completed from the very start. And it couldn't sting any more.

Brand New: rock and roll psalmists

Jesse Lacey of Brand New

Recently when picking up a friend, I was listening to Brand New's incredible 2006 album The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. The second track on the album, "Millstone", includes one of my favorite lines on the entire album:

"I used to sleep without a single stir/Because I was about my Father's work."

My friend riding with me looked surprised and asked, "When did Brand New become a Christian band?" The term was certainly used in an insulting tone, to show that bands that openly addressed religion, God or Jesus was considered seperate from respectable secular music. And this was a Christian speaking.

But lead singer and lyricist Jesse Lacey has always been pretty open about the perspective he's coming from. His religion, or at least religious history, is vital for his lyrical voice. He shows a Biblical literacy that dwarfs several of his indie rock compatriots. The very title of "Millstone" is a reference to the 17th chapter of Luke; the song itself is a confession of sorts, Lacey openly pondering how he got to the sinful place he sees himself at:

"I used to pray like God was listening/I used to make my parents proud/I was the glue that kept my friend together/Now they don't talk and we don't go out/I used to know the name of every person I kissed/Now I made this bed and I can't fall asleep in it."

The clear indication here is that Lacey believes that he's fallen too far. In the chorus, he speaks of the classic "Ship of Fools" sinking, with him aboard and the allegorical millstone around his neck. He cries out for someone to save him so that he can live, but feels drawn down by his own sin. Its a song that is crying out for redemption. The fact that it is followed on the album called simply "Jesus" is no accident.

Of course, on an album with a title like The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, religious subtext (or blatant references) are to be expected. But Lacey has been making Biblical allusions his entire career. Brand New's first album, Your Favorite Weapon, features a song called "Seventy Times 7". The song is about an experience where Lacey, betrayed by one of his friends, cannot find it in himself to forgive him. While the song certainly doesn't extol any Christian values (not that any Brand New songs do; they are certainly not evangelical), the title and the one line:

"They say you need to pray if you want to go to Heaven/But never told you what to do if your whole life's gone to Hell"

let the listener in on the joke: Lacey is releasing what he views is righteous anger against his brother (what he calls in the song his "best friend") without sinning. The end of the song even has Lacey relishing thoughts of his best friend's death:

"So have a few more drinks and drive your home/Hope there's ice out on the road/And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt/And again when your head goes through the windshield."

Lacey's religious moments are tense at best. He is caught between a desire for redemption but an awareness of his own shortcomings. In the song "Degausser," he questions the dimensions of grace, wondering if with all of his sins if he can really be forgiven. It is equal parts yearning and fearful. In the final climatic moments, after all of the screaming and anguish, a single tinny voice rises, as the music starts to fade:

"Take me, take me back to your bed/I love you so much that it hurts my head/I don't mind you under my skin/I let the bad parts in, the bad parts in/Well you're my favorite bird and when you sing/I really do wish that you'd wear my ring/No matter what they say, I am still the King/The storm is coming, the storm is coming in"

At first blush the line is easy to read about a girl, especially seeing how it is Lacey who's singing still. But if your perspective is slightly skewed, and you imagine a second voice coming in:

"Take me, take me back to your bed/I love you so much that it hurts my head/I don't mind you under my skin/I let the bad parts in, the bad parts in/Well you're my favorite bird and when you sing/I really do wish that you'd wear my ring/No matter what they say, I am still the King/The storm is coming, the storm is coming in"

Remember that bed and sleeping has already been used as a metaphor for the anxiety and guilt that Lacey feels for his transgresions. In this interpretation, the finale of the song is not a plea for a woman, but rather an assurance of pardon (the ultimate desire of the first four tracks of the album) and a loving word. While this interpretation may be wishful thinking, I also find it very powerful and fitting with the rest of the album. It is a final word of hope, which everything before it is searching for.