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| "Mutant Massacre" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | |||
| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||
| Publication date | October – December1986 | ||
| Genre | |||
| |||
| Main character(s) | X-Men X-Factor Thor New Mutants Power Pack Marauders Hela | ||
| Creative team | |||
| Writer(s) | Chris Claremont Louise Simonson Walter Simonson | ||
| Penciller(s) | John Romita Jr. Walter Simonson Sal Buscema | ||
| Inker(s) | Dan Green Bob Wiacek Sal Buscema | ||
| Letterer(s) | Tom Orzechowski Joe Rosen John E. Workman Jr. | ||
| Colorist(s) | Glynis Oliver Petra Scotese Christie Scheele | ||
| Mutant Massacre | ISBN 0-7851-0224-8 | ||
"Mutant Massacre" was a 1986Marvel Comicscrossover storyline. It primarily involved thesuperhero teams theX-Men andX-Factor. The solo heroThor, theNew Mutants,Power Pack, andDaredevil crossed over for an issue each in their own comic books.
The crossover was a surprise success, yielding sales boosts to themutant-based books and prompting Marvel Comics' long-running policy of holding such mutant crossovers annually.[1]
The story depicts amassacre of theMorlocks during an attack by theMarauders. TheX-Men,X-Factor, and Power Pack attempt to intervene, with the X-Men having three of their members injured in the conflict.
The mysteriousMarauders attack a mutant namedTommy and herHellfire Club boyfriend in Los Angeles for the purpose of following her back to New York and finding the location of the underground mutant community known as theMorlocks.[2] The Marauders kill Tommy and hundreds of Morlocks before theX-Men[3] andX-Factor[4] teams arrive separately and fight them, avoiding the total slaughter of the Morlocks. The two teams however do not meet during the battle and suffer crippling losses: X-Factor'sAngel is crucified by the Marauders,[4] while the X-Men'sColossus,Shadowcat, andNightcrawler are all severely wounded.[3] X-Factor's casualties are less due to the arrival ofPower Pack[5] andThor,[6] who help save the horribly wounded Angel and the rest of X-Factor from suffering any additional harm.
Thor uses his powers to cleanse the dead from the Morlock tunnels with fire,[7] which causes problems for the X-Men, who briefly believe that the firestorm was caused by the Marauders and believe that theNew Mutants died in said fire.[8] Several Morlocks, includingBerzerker andMasque,[9] make their way into the surface world and begin to work for their personal aims.
Meanwhile,Wolverine saves the Power Pack[5] andHealer[8] from the MarauderSabretooth. After their clash, Sabretooth follows Logan home to theX-Mansion. He destroysCerebro, but is kept from hurting the other Morlocks whenPsylocke engages Sabretooth in battle. Wolverine and the rest of the X-Men arrive, and Sabretooth falls off a nearby cliff in order to escape the X-Men, pursued into the water by Wolverine. As the fight continues in the ocean, Psylocke gleans some information about the Marauders from Sabretooth's mind.[10]
Uncanny X-Men
X-Factor
Daredevil
Daredevil #238 is set after the events of the Mutant Massacre. The issue features Daredevil fighting Sabretooth after his escape from the X-Mansion.
Here is the list of Morlocks that were killed during the Mutant Massacre and the issue they were killed in:
| Character | Death | Mutant power | Method of death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annalee | Uncanny X-Men #211 | Empathy | Shot byScalphunter. |
| Berzerker | X-Factor #11 | Electrical powers | Cyclops' optic blast knocked him into the river, where he electrocuted himself. |
| Blowhard | X-Factor #11 | Wind exhaling | Shot by the Savage Wolf Gang leader. |
| Cybelle | Uncanny X-Men #211 | Acid sweat | Killed byHarpoon. |
| Piper II | Uncanny X-Men #212 | Controlled animals using music | Killed by Scalphunter. |
| Scaleface | X-Factor #11 | Transforms into a large dragon-like reptilian creature | Shot by the police. |
| Tommy | Uncanny X-Men #210 | Two-dimensional ability | Killed by Harpoon and Scalphunter. |
| Zeek | X-Factor #10 | Unknown | Killed by Harpoon. |
Hundreds of other Morlocks were killed, but were not identified in the comics. Annalee and Piper were the only established characters among the casualties; the others were all generic characters whose sole purpose was to be victims of the massacre. This aspect of the story was satirized inWhat The--?! #4.
WriterChris Claremont originally conceived the systematic killing of the Morlocks as a storyline that would run in the pages ofUncanny X-Men, butX-Factor writerLouise Simonson felt that such a big storyline would run overlong in a single title, and suggested that it be done as a crossover between all three mutant titles.[1][16]
Claremont and Simonson, the chief writers of the crossover, exchanged copies of their typewritten plots and scripts, and extensively discussed the intersecting storylines over the telephone.[16] Asked what it was like to coordinate all the Mutant Massacre-linked stories, Simonson said "It was horrible. I don't know why we're thinking ofdoing this again."[16]
Walt Simonson, who wrote theThor instalments of "Mutant Massacre" and pencilled the X-Factor instalments, said:
Partly, what we were trying to do in the crossover was not create a string of beads where you had to go from one bead to the next bead to the next bead in order to follow the entire storyline. What we were trying to do, rather, was to take several separate skeins and intertwine them in such a way that in the end they formed a coherent whole, but then unwound and went in their own directions. And you can follow any one skein through the Massacre: you can readX-Men, you can readX-Factor, or you can readThor,New Mutants,Power Pack, orDaredevil without really having to go over and read all the other books. But, of course, then you don't get the whole picture.[16]
| Title | Material collected | Published date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| X-Men: Mutant Massacre (TPB) | Uncanny X-Men #210-214,X-Factor #9-11,New Mutants #46 | June 1997 | 978-0785102243 |
| X-Men: Mutant Massacre (HC) | Uncanny X-Men #210-214,X-Factor #9-11,New Mutants #46,Thor #373-374,Power Pack #27,Daredevil #238 | January 2010 | 978-0785138051 |
| X-Men: Mutant Massacre Omnibus | Uncanny X-Men #210-219,X-Men Annual #11,X-Factor #9-17,X-Factor Annual #2,New Mutants #46,Thor #373-374 377-378,Power Pack #27,Daredevil #238,Fantastic Four vs. the X-Men #1-4,X-Men vs. the Avengers #1-4 | January 2022 | 978-1302931599 |
InThe Gifted episode "calaMity", The Purifiers murdering all of the Morlocks in their tunnels was the premise of the "Mutant Massacre" storyline.
