Since I’ve been on a latter-day Chris Claremont kick lately, I thought I’d tell you all about The Arena, a four-issue arc of Claremont’s X-Treme X-Men series from 2004, with art by Igor Kordey. What I believe was originally intended as a stand-alone graphic novel, these issues include some of the most unabashed, gratuitous examples of Chris Claremont’s weird S&M/mind-control fetish. Now, I of course have no problems with S&M activities between two or more consenting adults, or artistic expressions thereof in and of themselves, but it’s… it’s just a bit weird when it shows up so overtly in an X-Men comic book. And it’s this weirdness that I want to share with you, dear reader!
Let’s start with the main character of this four-issue arc, Storm, who leaves the X-Men to track down slaver Tullamore Voge while the rest of them confront Elias Bogan, a malevolent disembodied mind-controlling mutant, because what else would he be. They make some halfhearted attempts to stop her from going solo, giving her a hard time about being “too cocky, too stubborn, too proud” to call for backup if she needs it. She goes to visit her longtime friend Yukio, a freewheeling ninja-type who routinely demonstrates her reckless nature by jumping off Tokyo high-rise buildings, so secure is she in the knowledge that Storm will catch her, which makes Storm’s customary outrage (“You could have killed yourself! What possessed you, woman?!”) a bit ludicrous considering she does this literally every time they meet. So after sharing some godawful awkward dialogue, they do that thing where Yukio gets Storm to dress up so they can charm their way past the standard-issue bouncer at this exclusive high-end sexy sex-club, asking “What’re you afraid of, ‘Ro? The clothes… or the woman they may set free?” Because yeah, if anybody can draw “sexy,” you’d better believe it’s Igor Kordey! (I mean, dat codpiece, amirite?) More old-man-style narration follows:
“In my life, I have never met anyone so utterly fearless, so full of passion, so totally and fiercely alive [as Yukio]. With every breath, she dares death to claim her. The closer he comes, the more she laughs. I have never understood why she chose me for a friend, but it is a relationship I have come to cherish. She is a wild, untamed soul. And when I am with her, so am I.”
Yaawwwn. Just reminding us that if there’s anything Chris Claremont loves, it’s [over-]writing the exact same relationships he wrote for these characters thirty-plus years ago, which, for the actual sincere Claremont fans out there, I can only imagine they love for his consistency. In the club, they’re approached by foppish show-runner Masata Koga, who wants to recruit them to the Arena, which he figures they can’t resist as he describes them all as “predators. That is the nature of our species. It is bred into our genes, our blood, our bones, our very soul. The urge to fight! The need to win!” Predictably enough, Storm breaks up the fight-to-the-death by entering the arena of her own free will, facing her opponent… ugh… Musclehead, and delivering her knockout punch with a SKARA-BOOM! along with her classic finishing line, “But you should remember, whenever you see lightning… there’s also thunder!” And because nothing is sexier than underground mutant gladiatorial fights, and due to Storm’s apparent lobotomy, she is overcome by the “glorious” victory and wants more!
Anyway, Storm goes back to Yukio’s apartment where they gab at each other for pages and pages and pages, during which Storm presumably ruins Yukio’s laptop by melodramatically splashing wine all over a jpeg of Xavier’s face. (Storm, what the @#$% is wrong with you?) Some time later, Guido “Strong Guy” Carosella – who brought such joy to so many in Peter David’s X-Factor – is reduced to providing page after page after interminable page of expository dialogue in the most excruciating dumb-guy accent:
“Waitaminnit! I t’ink I see where you’re goin’ wit’ dis, Storm. Dis is not good. Dis is so not good. Dis is why I went after you before, ta keep you from doin’ somethin’ so unbelievably stoopid! Dis ain’t no casual deal I’m talkin’ here. […] “Ev’ry time you walk out onto the sands of the Arena, it’s all or nuttin’.”
So for whatever reason, Storm decides to go back to the Arena and take on the role of Champion, at which point her longtime nemesis Callisto shows up. I’d like to talk about Callisto for a minute. For those of you who, for whatever reason, did not tune in to the X-Men Animated Series, Callisto is the on-again-off-again leader of the Morlocks, the community of mutant outcasts who live in the abandoned sewer tunnels beneath New York City because their disfigurements make them unable to live in human society. She’s a huntress with superhumanly keen senses and a penchant for knife-fights. But all too often, she’s portrayed as just an otherwise beautiful woman with an eyepatch, which she isn’t. You wanna see Callisto? You wanna see my Callisto? Baby, feast your eye(s) on this terrifying she-monster from your nightmares! That’s Callisto!
But instead, because we’re in Japan, and Chris Claremont wants to add another layer of fetish onto this series, we get [BONER ALERT]… tentacles! And it’s at this point that I start to wonder at the confluence of events that led to this old, old man writing these X-Men characters to act out his bizarre BDSM fetishes, as drawn by someone like Igor Kordey, who, bless his heart, is clearly giving it his all, but the end result of which is less sexy than it is… discomfiting. I can also only wonder at the hilarious conversation that must have occurred between issues where someone (perhaps assistant editors Stephanie Moore and Cory Sedlmeier, or editor Mike Marts, who I can only imagine must have been loving their jobs while all this was going on) suggested that Igor Kordey maaaybe consider adding electrical tape X’s over Callisto’s nipples underneath her fishnet top. Because, yeah, we don’t want this to get weird or anything.
But as Storm wonders aloud to Callisto whether it was worth it to transform herself to this extent just to settle a score with her, we come to the most unfathomable, bizarre, what-the-@#$%iest part of these four issues: Masque.
Let me tell you about Masque – don’t worry, he’s a relatively simple character, it won’t take long. Masque is actually one of the first Morlocks we meet, and one with the most reason to be there: he is a hideously disfigured old man with the unique mutant ability to re-shape the flesh of others with but a touch – able to make someone look exactly like someone else, or even mush up their face all horrible so they suffocate – but he is unable to use his powers on himself. You see? You see how neatly this works? His internal bitterness and rage against the society that shuns him is reflected and reinforced by his grotesque appearance. He has the ability to make everyone beautiful, but he doesn’t. He’s a monster inside and out, but you can see where he’s coming from, and relatability leads to sympathy, and sympathy leads to tragedy. At this point I am over-explaining his character.
So when someone that looks like Marilyn Monroe in a kimono saunters in with her leather-fetish entourage (Purge, PosterBoy, and Paradise, if you’re wondering)… and Storm immediately recognizes this individual as Masque… and thinks things like, “Masque’s presence explains why the agents who came before me disappeared. She could have turned them into anyone — or anything!” [emphasis added]… it threw me, to say the least. It continues to throw me. Because that isn’t Masque. He has always been a horrible old man, so there’s no reason Storm or anybody else should recognize him here (unless it’s a kind of Dr. Girlfriend scenario in which he still has the same voice to go along with his new appearance, which, in my imagination, is amazing). Storm references Masque’s desire for vengeance against both herself and Callisto, so it’s not like I’m confusing this new character with somebody else. There’s even a scene where s/he glibly wonders whose appearance s/he’ll take on next.
Please note that both these comics and Masque’s first appearance are written by the same writer. Chris Claremont created Masque. So to this day I am at a loss to explain his justification here; Masque is hardly what I would call an important figure in the X-Men mythos, but he was a solid character, and the thought of a character’s physical body being completely at the mercy of someone else’s whim is genuinely creepy. Later issues of the X-Men, as well as the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe, credit this change to a good ol’ “secondary mutation,” but to give Masque the ability to change his own face as well as those of others basically reduces him to just another shape-shifter, and completely undercuts the foundation of this character for not a lot of gain. I mean, why not just cut to the chase, skip the middleman, and highlight slaver Tullamore Voge as the mastermind behind the Arena, for whom Claremont has long sported an inexplicable boner? Or why not just make Masque some horrible old man in a nice sharp suit to go along with his new role? What was the point?
So then we’re treated to a whole ‘nother issue in which Storm and Callisto compete against their will as slaves to this mutant-on-mutant gladiatorial combat for the entertainment of the masses, and because it’s Chris Claremont, you can’t have slavery without some seriously uncomfortable S&M scenes. Like this one. And this one. And hoo-boy this one. Not to mention more seeking, slithering tentacle action. Have you forgotten we’re reading an X-Men comic yet? Where we all managed to get here by successfully navigating past the wee small “PSR” next to the issue number on the cover that stands for “Parents Strongly Recommended?” (I can only hope my mom is okay with my reading this stuff.) Again, I’m as open to BDSM as anyone, but when it’s so blatantly non-consensual and happening to a character I care about, it gives me the heebie-jeebies. Why is this happening to poor Storm? Why did this story need to be told over four double-sized issues? Why did this story happen in 2004, when we should all know better? Is this what comes from allowing Chris Claremont free rein to just do whatever he wants? Or was it all just for the sake of that one comic writer devoted X-Men fan where this story just ticks every box on his kink checklist, and if he thinks this comic is the hottest thing he’s ever seen, then by god, all the hard work will have been worth it?
But ehh, don’t worry about it, I guess. Storm and Callisto go along with it until eventually Yukio, Strong Guy, and Masato Koga help them snap out of it (thanks to the power of friendship!) and overpower and defeat Masque, since needless to say, someone who can warp bodies upon physical contact and his/her cronies who can induce pain and pleasure upon physical contact are well-matched against a mutant who can wield the forces of nature. Callisto declares she likes her new body, and they put Masque in the crate intended for Tullamore Voge, to which a completely in-character Storm declares, “I hope Voge likes his new prezzie” (AAAAUUUGGGGHHHH). And since this is still an X-Men comic, Storm then delivers our moral about putting aside the challenge and danger of gladiatorial combat in favor of providing a safe haven for all mutants, and then our story concludes with our heroes enjoying a nice comradely victory soak in a hot tub. With tentacles.
As a kind of epilogue to this nonsense, Storm and Callisto both reconnect with the X-Men in the penultimate issue of Chris Claremont’s X-Treme X-Men series. There are just so many things wrong with this page that I hardly know where to start. First off, we have Kitty Pryde still in her “Coyote Ugly” phase. (Seriously, she was a college bartender for a while.) Secondly, while welcoming back Storm, she uncharacteristically describes Callisto’s new tentacle-monster look as “cute.” Callisto replies with an equally uncharacteristic “Totally!” and I sometimes consider adding “Take a sip every time an adult character uses the phrase ‘so,’ ‘totally,’ or ‘so totally'” to the Chris Claremont drinking game, but that much alcohol would assuredly threaten the reader’s life. Callisto not only glibly refers to Masque with the pronoun “her” as if anyone else in the room would know who the @#$% she was talking about, but she also precedes this with, “Making free with the ‘revenge’ thing,” which isn’t even an old-man-itis turn of phrase, it’s just plain baffling. “Making free?” That’s not a phrase among Earth humans, is it?
But that one panel… I have no idea, you guys. I have no idea what the script called for, I have no idea what the writer or the artist intended to convey, and I have no idea why these two characters are engaging in these awkward and inexplicable homoerotic overtones. I don’t know why Callisto is doing it and I definitely don’t know why Storm is going along with it, whatever it is. Hey! Hey, did you know that one time Storm stabbed Callisto through the heart with a switchblade in a one-on-one fight to the death? This is a thing that happened! “Oh, brother!” is right, Kitty Pryde! Oh, brother to us all!
