X-People: Blue (Concept)

As you may recall, I discussed Blue Kelso aka Bluestreak, in particular pondering what her codename was -if any-before joining Clint Barton's group of special students later known as the Dream Team. Prior to this, Blue was a member of the X-People led by Jubilee. While we know nothing about this point in Ms. Kelso's life, it's fun to imagine her in a trainee X-Costume. With that said, here's my cruddy first attempt at photoshop:

Please be kind. Apologies to Ron Frenz.




Until I get better with Photoshop, I remain




frogoat

MC2 Family Trees Master Post

My own self-imposed rule of posting at least once a week hasn't gone to plan due to very limited free time. I'd prefer to put out something rather than nothing but with no time to spare, I figure a full list of my MC2 Family Trees would have to suffice for now. There will be more of these family trees in future, including a few updates to previous entries.

The Yama Family Tree

The Mansfield Family Tree

The Kirby Family Tree

The Hardy/Thompson Family Tree

The Xavier-Marko Family Tree

The Duran Family Tree

The DeSantos Family Tree

The Crazy/Face Family Tree

The Jameson Family Tree

The Carter Family Tree

The Masterson Family Tree

The Lang Family Tree

The Drew Family Tree

The Morgan Family Tree

The Robertson Family Tree

The Dillon Family Tree

The Logan Family Tree

The Forest Family Tree

The Wyngarde Family Tree

The Wakandan Royal Family Tree

The Lang Family Tree *Updated*

The Bryce-Jones Family Tree

The Rambeau-Freeman Family Tree

The Harkness Family Tree

The Brady Family Tree

The Lu Family Tree

That's all of the Family Trees to date. If there are any specific MC2 Family Tree's you'd like to see, please don't hesitate to ask. I'd love some feedback. Even if you think I've got something wrong, tell me!

Until I find more time to put out something more consequential, I remain

frogoat

The Harkness Family Tree

I had a lot of fun with this one. It was mostly straight forward and who doesn't like reading about witches?! So here we have the long and unbroken line of The Harkness Family Tree!

Agatha Harkness made her first appearance way back in Fantastic Four #94 as the governess employed by Sue and Reed Richards to look after their young son, Franklin Richards. It became apparent that there was more to Agatha than it first seemed and in time the Fantastic Four learned Agatha was indeed a witch. Agatha also became a tutor to the Scarlet Witch. Later, it is revealed that Agatha was far older than she appeared, apparently encountering a powerful being known as Scrier some five centuries before the fall of Atlantis and much later having governed the witches of Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials. Eventually, she led them into the mountains of what became Colorado where they built the town of New Salem in seclusion.

At some point, Agatha bore a son to an unidentified (though apparently evil) man. Nicholas Scratch first appeared in Fantastic Four #185 wherein he led the people of New Salem in a plot to execute his mother for exposing the existence of the town. The Fantastic Four revealed Agatha had never spoken of New Salem and Scratch's own hand in revealing the existence of New Salem to them (Fantastic Four #186). Scratch's evil was revealed and he was banished to the Dark Realm, though as I'm sure you can guess it wasn't the last we'd see of him.

Agatha reveals Nicholas is her son (Fantastic Four #186)

During the events of Fantastic Four #186, the Fantastic Four first encounter Scratch's enforcers, the Salem Seven, a group of skilled magic users who can transform themselves to gain powers and who collectively were capable of great magical feats. Brutacus, became a leonine creature; Gazelle gained enhanced hearing, agility and gymnast skills; Hydron gained a fish-like appearance and projected high pressure water blasts; Reptilla became a serpentine creature with snakes for hands; Thornn grew sharp spines capable of exploding or releasing neuro-toxins; Vakume could become intangible, absorb energy and create vacuums and Vertigo had the ability to disrupt others equilibrium.

Curiously, the Salem Seven only refer to Nicholas Scratch as their master in their early appearances. It's not until Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3 that we learn Scratch is the father to all of the Seven, by way of various unidentified wives, also making Agatha their grandmother. It's also here that we learn the little that we know of Nicholas' own father. During this story, Agatha is burned at the stake and apparently killed, though this was apparently only temporary because she resurfaced sometime later very much alive, an ability her entire family seem to have inherited.

The only other potential family member I came across in my research for this Family Tree was a witch named Abigail Harkness from Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century. However her first (and only) appearance is in in X-Men: Hellfire Club #1 which was cover dated January 2000, beyond the usual MC2 divergence point, so I have not included her in the Harkness Family Tree above.

Aerika Harkness, also known as the Crimson Curse first appeared in A-Next #3 and was fully revealed in A-Next #4 as a member of the Dream Team. A sorceress who used elemental powers, we learn that Aerika is descended from an unbroken line of highly skilled practitioners of the magic arts, the Harknesses of Salem in A-Next #8. We don't have any specifics about how Aerika is related to the Harkness family at this time. The Crimson Curse apparently dies during an encounter with an alternate reality Dr Doom in A-Next #11, however she does make an appearance during the 2015 Secret Wars event very much alive.

I spoke to co-creator Ron Frenz about this and he revealed that this was due to the nature of the reality of the Battleworld aka Doomworld. The event established that the Main Marvel Universe/616 Victor Doom made the Battleworld reality with him as the sole existing Dr Doom in existence, meaning the Crimson Curse couldn't have been killed by an alternate Doom in this version of reality. A big 'Thank you' to Ron Frenz for talking with me and clarifying this point.

I'll be damned if I can figure out who Scratch's dad could be. Until then, I remain

frogoat

Comic Homages

Continuing on from my previous post about homages and all things lovingly referenced, I present to you, my loyal readers (if I have any) a further examination into not just cover homages, but also panels, stories and motifs. Read on.

You may remember a small little post a while back regarding the subtle and not-so-subtle connections between Amazing Spider-man #9 and Spider-Girl #9: Electrically-themed villain, cover parallels, heck, even the same number issue! I'll link it here so you can take a quick peak: http://frogoat.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/supanova-approaches.html

Well, let's go deeper down the rabbit hole, shall we?

A-Next #8 clearly borrows heavily from the classic Avengers #93 (from the absolutely sublime Kree/Skrull War saga) in which Ant-Man enters the body of the inert android Vision to re-activate him, battling his way through the synthetic man's strange immune system in the process. Meanwhile, in the MC2's Avengers Compound, Stinger enlists her father Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man as they venture inside the mechanical Mainframe (spoilers, by the way) to ensure his malfunctioning module broadcasts his intelligence into another body.

Avengers #93 art by Neal Adams and Tom Palmer

A-Next #8 art by Ron Frenz and Al Milgrom

While we are talking about A-Next, I can't go past the most obvious nod to the Avengers past: Avengers #16. The first and most daring Avenger's roster shake-up ever, throwing the established team of Giant-Man (formerly Ant-Man), the Wasp, Thor and Iron Man out in favor of relative unknown's (to say nothing of known criminals and possible terrorists) Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. The impact this had on the fledgeling team is probably the most significant, proving to the readers and the creative team that this little Avengers thing--this could work no matter who was in the book, so long as it was good.

Avengers #16

 Over in A-Next #4 we get American Dream and her Dream Team thrust upon the new fledgeling team of Avengers by the machinations of the mighty Mainframe. Suddenly, the team has to face the possibility of replacement by an already functional and well-trained team. This time we get American Dream (already glimpsed in A-Next #3 and sneakily hidden in A-Next #1. Look closely), Freebooter, Blue Streak and the mysterious Crimson Curse.

A-Next #4

Want more Avenger-y goodness? Avengers #25 features the newbie Avengers (Cap's Kooky Quartet as fan's have since dubbed them) in Latveria, doing battle with the good doctor himself, Doctor Doom (with a name like that, was he ever going to be a horse-whisperer?). A-Next #5 features (you guessed it!) the new members- teamed with Stinger- in Latveria investigating rumors of a returned Doctor Doom.

 This issue not only pays it's dues to the Avengers tale but also to Marvel history, utilizing Doom's ward Kristoff Vernard and building upon old Fantastic Four and Avengers characters and stories. Most of which I haven't read and don't need to to understand the situation. In short: Stinger aka Cassandra Lang and Kristoff Vernard were lovers. Beautiful.

What it adds is also impressive: We hear in A-Next #3 from the Defenders that the 'savage' Sub-Mariner, Namor did battle with Doom. In this tale we discover more tidbits. Scattered through-out the MC2 universe are hints of what happened: Doom wiped out Atlantis, killing Namor's people, and in return, Namor kill's Doom. Or so we are led to believe.....


Until I run out of homages to ramble about, I remain

frogoat