A Defense of the Onslaught Saga

     The Onslaught Saga is a bad event comic. I don’t really think that is up for debate. What I am trying to highlight is the good that is weighed down by the cruft. But to fully grok the frankly insane story we are about to embark on we have to turn our attention back the 1993 crossover event Fatal Attractions, penned by Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell, the event chronicles the aftereffects of Magneto’s heel turn in X-Men (1991) #1-3. The key part of the event, at least for our purposes, is the iconic finale where the X-Men confront the villain on his asteroid base Avalon. It is here after Magneto uses his power to rip the adamantium coating from Wolverine’s bones, that Magneto has his mind wiped by Professor Xavier in a fit of anger. This is the moment that will create Onslaught and sets us on the path to one of the most notorious event comics of all time.

          Now what precisely is Onslaught? In the simplest terms, the being known as Onslaught is the psychic gestalt of Magneto and Professor X, with Magneto’s mutant supremacist making a fetid stew with Xavier’s own latent fears and anxieties that eventually manifests itself as an actual physical being. And honestly, I think it’s from here the event and the character starts to lose people. The X-Men generally and Magneto and Professor X specifically have a long and complicated history as two of the franchise’s oldest characters. Magneto in particular has a somewhat unique path from villain to hero to villain and back again. As he was originally created, Magneto is almost unrecognizable to modern readers, an abusive megalomaniac, he operates more as a cartoon villain than an actually fleshed out character. It’s not until Chris Claremont, the X-Men’s most prolific and impactful writer, gets his hand on him that the character gains the shape we know him in today. Claremont gives Magneto the backstory of being a Holocaust survivor and begins to slowly redeem him from his days of villainy, until he is eventually the headmaster at the Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters. Magneto proved unsuited for the role as his more morally grey tendencies clashed with the X-Men’s more straight and narrow approach. But once Chris Claremont began to be forced out of Marvel in 1991 (that’s a whole thing don’t worry about it here) with the aforementioned X-Men (1991) #1-3, Magneto was turned heel again, undoing Claremont’s redemption arc. Magneto’s status as a hero or villain is a topic of debate among many a comic fan or writer, with some folks like Grant Morrison not buying the character’s initial face turn at all. So, the decision to have Chuck wipe Magneto’s mind was bound to be controversial to begin with as it was the culmination of the unravelling of years of story. And that’s without even considering the ramifications on Xavier’s character.

          To quote Katherine Ann Pryde “Professor Xavier is a jerk!” and frankly given the historical record, he’s getting off pretty lightly there. Charles Xavier has a long and sordid past with behavior that can most charitably read as borderline abusive. See his attraction to Jean Grey in the sixty’s material, faking his own death to teach his students a lesson soon after or really the entirety of X-Men: Deadly Genesis. Generally, he’s left with enough wiggle room to justify his behavior in one way or another, whether it be possession, aliens or simply the shift in the cultural morays of the world since the book began publishing but Fatal Attractions and his actions with in it represent a sort of moral Rubicon. With Charles directly attacking and taking agency from one of his oldest and dearest friends, a man who at this point we have spent ten plus years watching work to redeem himself, a man who Charles renders catatonic, it’s a lot for a character to come back from. This is in the aftermath of Magneto’s Acolytes wreaking destruction across the earth, and the man himself creating a worldwide electromagnetic pulse after the UN attacks his base which to some may justify Charles’ actions to a degree but the final confrontation and its effects, both the assault on Wolverine and Charles wiping Magneto’s memories and mind are rendered so viscerally and have so much history behind them that its almost repulsive to see. And with the follow up being Onslaught, who spends most of the event operating as a thin cartoon character, it’s a level of depth and pathos that was going to be hard to follow up on.

 It is also somewhat disappointing evil Charles only comes around from the influence of Magneto, as we have seen through the past 30+ years of X-Men history Chuck is fully capable of being a monster but here it is portrayed as his break into full villainy only coming from the influence of Magneto’s psychic imprint which feels like it is removing the agency from Charles. It is also just far more interesting to me for Onslaught to be born of the break down and trauma that Xavier suffers mind wiping his oldest and dearest friend.

Now we come to the meat of the event. The actual reveal of Onslaught is fairly well done. There are small hints at the entity as the psychic X-Men catch glimpses of him on the astral plane, but it is not until we get to Uncanny X-Men #322 the first shot is really fired in the event as after a night out on the town the Juggernaut falls from the sky, beaten and bloodied only able to utter one word, Onslaught. Choosing Juggernaut is a great choice to introduce Onslaught as both his power set of being literally unstoppable and his long history as one of the X-Men’s original villains really emphasizes the threat the psychic entity poses. And the fact that Juggernaut later comes to the X-Men, his long-time enemies, for help in identifying Onslaught shows the power that he wields as well. He is slowly teased over the next few months of X-Men issues until X-Men (1991) #50 when Wolverine, Storm, Iceman and Cyclops are kidnapped by the entity known as Post, to test them for their worthiness in Onslaughts coming new world order.

 The X-Men being kidnapped from their own home further fleshes out Onslaughts power and begins to hint at his plans that are more fully fleshed out in X-Men (1991) #53 when Onslaught psychically confronts Jean Grey during a shopping trip at the events official start. Going through the usual villain spiel, Onslaught lays out a politic of frustration with Xavier’s dream, one that should be well-known to most long time X-Readers, mutants should rule over humanity etc. etc. What is unique to Onslaughts villain monologue is he reveals a moment from the sixties run of the X-Men where Xavier admits to a lust for younger Jean in one of the first instances of the X-Men being forced to confront Xavier’s often unethical relationships with his students. Onslaught asks Jean to join him in villainy, which she rejects and is forced back into the real world.

          The slow buildup of tension as we see the X-Men’s anxiety grow and grow and their relationships fray is a great way to ratchet up the threat that Onslaught poses. The final reveal in X-Men: Onslaught is equally well played out. Professor X calls his students to his side as he reflects on the failures of his dreams over the past few years, with the events of X-Cutioner’s Song and Fatal Attractions blowing up and ultimately hurting his dream of mutant/human peace. Jean thinks she knows who Onslaught is after communing telepathically with Juggernaut, when she realizes that Onslaught has defeated Cain again, she makes her move, and it is revealed she was incorrect as Onslaught reveals himself as Professor Xavier. Jean is convinced that Onslaught is a being possessing Xavier, much like their longtime foe the Shadow King, but Onslaught reveals that he is in fact a creation of Xavier and his deepest darkest impulses and emotions. Onslaught precedes to soundly beat all the X-Men, but they manage to escape. All this slaps. The slow build to the reveal of Onslaughts identity, the tension between Xavier and his students and how all this ties into the previous few years of X events, the fear as he calls the X-Men to his study and the reveal that it was Xavier all along is just phenomenal.

          However, it is pretty much immediately after this that things start to fall apart, but to fully grok the next thirty issues of nonsense we must return to real world for a moment and discuss the Heroes Reborn initiative. For most of the nineties the dominant forces at Marvel Comics were the X-Men and Spiderman, as previously mentioned X-Men (1991) #1 is the single best-selling comic book issue of all time. But as these titles prospered many of the other Marvel offerings, such as the Avengers or the Fantastic Four lagged far behind in sales. So, Marvel approached Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to revamp their non-X-Men and Spiderman books, the two artists who had led the Image exodus of 1992 that we discussed during our exploration of X-Cutioner’s Song. Having found new heights of popularity after their departure and rather extreme stylistic preferences, the two were given a fresh slate to work with as the aftermath of the Onslaught Saga would see the caped heroes transported to an alternate pocket universe.

 So how do we get to there from evil Charles Xavier you may ask? With the power of everyone’s favorite Fantastic Four character, Franklin Richards. With godlike reality warping powers Onslaught’s plans involve harnessing this child’s power to take over the world, also harnessing the power from Nate Grey, another deeply complicated character. This plan is incredibly ill defined, clashes with Onslaughts earlier dreams of mutant supremacy and involves landing a citadel in the middle of Central Park while letting the Sentinels run havoc upon the assembled ranks of humanity in New York City. And then we spend the next thirtyish issues seeing the effects of Onslaughts reign of terror on New York City and the world and maybe this is a personal issue, but I really don’t care about any of it? I have minimal investment of many of the capes but the stories they are telling during the effects portion of the event are too scattered for me to get invested.

Take the Excalibur tie in issues for example, most of their run time is taken up by the plot of the London Hellfire Club trying to wake the demon that slumbers under London through the power of the evil sapphic coven of Madelyne Pryor and Selene. Or the Green Goblin issues which chronicle the efforts of the fourth Green Goblin (don’t worry about it) Phil Ulrich as he helps his uncle at the Daily Bugle as they repel a Sentinel attack. The effects issues are just too varied and trying to do too much and it becomes muddled. Don’t even get me started on the one Punisher issue I had to read.

Now we come to what is perhaps the most notorious part of the event and the bit that ties directly into the launch of the Heroes Reborn line, the finale. The heroes have made several attempts to defeat the psychic menace, their first manages to split Xavier from the entity, but Onslaught persists, however with reduced psychic powers and the heroes’ retreat. I don’t love this particular choice as it removes some of the responsibility that Charles has in creating Onslaught, it feels weird that a being that was essentially created as a response to the massive trauma he suffered mind wiping his closest friend can exist separate from him and implies that he had no role in that evil. I guess it’s just a little too clean and lets the story paint it as just the evil part of Xavier without examining how the man was led to that point.

The heroes second attempt to defeat is more successful as Jean Grey suppresses the Bruce Banner aspect that is keeping the Hulks savage nature in check (which is a lot that we don’t have to time to dive into here) supercharging his powers so the Hulk is able to shatter Onslaughts armor. As a being of pure energy Onslaught attempts to harness Franklin Richards powers to create a second sun and destroy the heroes and the rest of New York. Thor flies into the center of Onslaughts energy in an attempt to disrupt him which does begin to weaken Onslaught, and the heroes all join him in his sacrifice. However, Reed Richards notes that mutants cannot sacrifice themselves, as when Rogue made contact with Onslaught earlier in the battle his powers began to surge. So, each non mutant hero sacrifices themselves to stop Onslaught and dissipate his energies while the X-Men must stand there and watch. The capes seemingly dead are transported to the Heroes Reborn universe as the X-Men must deal with the mistrust of the public for being blamed for the caped hero’s disappearance and their own mistrust with Xaviers betrayal and subsequent surrender to US government, in an attempt to guarantee he would never hurt anyone again.

I now realize I must explain why I like this event as I have realized that I spent the last eight pages explaining what a mess it is. I mean the end of the event is an utterly contrived train wreck. The actual defeat of Onslaught is whatever, villains have gone down in stupider ways before. But the climax which had brought together the formerly hostile X-Men and non-mutant heroes falls apart when only the non-mutant heroes can sacrifice themselves. It is a rather inelegant way to put the mutants on the back foot in the public eye following the event as the public inevitably blames them for the disappearance of the caped heroes because they were the only ones to survive. But that’s where the mutants always operate by dint of their status as a minority metaphor, hell they got vilified for the events of Fatal Attractions and the Acolytes reign of terror and were looked at suspiciously for that. It’s an unnecessary twist in service of Heroes Reborn and just comes off really stilted. Which I guess it is, but it feels so inelegant and kind of makes the X-Men look like chumps as they just do nothing as the other heroes save them. And the X-Men are left where they started, with no answer for Charles’ run as a super villain, no change in the status quo and essentially the same characters as before just with more trust issues.

I have trouble enunciating why I like this event, it’s not good. Its overly long, often dull, and tonally inconsistent, the character work is often flawed at best and its really trying to do way too much. In addition to the ramifications from Fatal Attractions, Excalibur is dealing with their ongoing Hellfire problems, Dark Beast has arrived from the Age of Apocalypse timeline and is up to no good, Hulk is on his own weird path in a unitard as he fights Olympians, hell even Thor gets his own little side quest. And while I dislike a lot of the storylines, or simply don’t care I have to admire its moxie. This event arrives in 1995 and feels almost like the turning point between the early nineties events that had a more melodramatic almost Shakespearean quality to them (see my exploration of Executioner’s Song) and the much more extravagant, soap opera-y (in a bad way) events of the late nineties. It’s a turning point away from the morally complicated but ultimately hopeful dialogue heavy stories of the Claremont era and a move into a much edgier, action driven one. It’s an event that’s deeply of its time, it has a few good parts, for example I think the first few issues building up to Onslaughts reveal are great and a lot of bad stuff as well. But it’s an event I am glad exists because while its heavily flawed it is fascinating and serves as a capsule of a very specific moment in comics history.

In the end Onslaught Saga reminds me a bit of Season Two of Twin Peaks which similarly went off the rails once the killer was revealed and trailed off for a while longer with little direction before eventually coming to an unceremonious end. There is something to like there, a kernel of a good idea, but it falls apart due to unnecessary corporate direction, and the weight of its own ambitions.