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rallamajoopI've been reading back through some of the old X-Force issues lately – mostly looking for useful characterisation references on Vanessa and/or Domino as they're getting a Big Scene in the next part of Good Intentions – and in doing so got myself stuck on one of those odd little details that you catch out of the corner of your slash goggles on your a second read. You know, the kind that leaves you sitting there going, “Wait, did they just... did they actually say what I think they just said?”
For context on the first scene that got my attention, after having her cover blown and leaving X-Force, Vanessa spends a couple of issues hiding out in the house of an old friend called Tina Valentino. During which, the following exchange occurs:
“I've seen you every which way I possibly could,” says Tina. Uh-huh.
Running into a line with that much subtext does make you wonder a little. See, the thing about the old X-Force issues is that, despite the cringe-worthy EXTREEEEME nineties approach to most of action and storytelling, there is the odd moment of uncharacteristic subtlety here and there in how certain details get introduced. For example, when Deadpool first shows up and his response to taking a nasty blow to the face is to announce, “Think you just broke my jaw, Nathan. I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!!” (and then to go right on fighting and talking, clearly none the worse for it), it gives you a reasonably effective way of establishing that he's got a healing factor without having it spelt out explicitly. Maybe not Eisner-nomination material, but given that this is back in the same era when you could have been forgiven for thinking that Superboy was incapable of activating his tactile telekinesis without first telling the audience all about it, it did kinda impress me. (Considering all the other glaring inconsistencies that plagued those early issues, I suppose it's also possible that they hadn't even decided that Deadpool had a healing factor yet, that the 'keeps talking with a broken jaw' thing was purely meant to show what an incomprehensible badass he was, and that I'm giving the whole exchange entirely too much credit, but I still like to think that's what they were going for.)
Even so, the world seen through the slash goggles can be a pretty warped place, and in context, it's just as logical to interpret that line to mean Tina's seen Vanessa go through the emotional turmoil of her break up with Wade, and seen her morphed into any number of weird and disturbing forms before (and what with the middle name and all it does come across as sort of motherly), as it does to interpret it to mean that Tina's seen her naked from every possible angle, right? So once I was done with the juvenile sniggering at that bit of debatable sexual innuendo, I was pretty much ready to put it out of my mind.
That was when I ran into the next scene.
Context for this one: following the first scene, Tina discovers that Vanessa's morphed into a perfect copy of her. Tina must have dealt with this much better than Vanessa expected, because next we see the two of them are out on the town together, having a good time pretending to be identical twins. This comes to an abrupt end when they run into Deadpool and another random thug called Sluggo, who shoots and kills Tina. Horrified, Vanessa runs home alone, but Deadpool and Sluggo catch up with her.
I never liked what you and her had together, says Deadpool. Who, I point out, is Vanessa's ex, and at this stage of the story still badly not over her. This is a guy who has, in recent issues, gone out of his way to find excuses to refer to her as 'his babe', and who's taken far too much pleasure in being given the excuse to rough her up for comfort (it probably goes without saying that Deadpool was written as a much less sympathetic character in those early days). This is, in short, a guy with some dangerous unresolved jealousy issues. And look how he phrases it: not I never liked her anyway, it's quite specifically, I never liked what you and her had together. If you look sideways and squint you can maybe see it as an indication of Wade's obseesion with her having gone completely over the top, but it's the kind of statement that's subtext goes well past where it's actually harder to interpret as anything other than a reference to Vanessa and Tina having been romantically involved.
Looking at it from the perspective of a slasher, there's also a pretty good supply of supporting 'evidence' in the surrounding material. Vanessa has canonically loved at least three men (Wade, Cable and Kane) and spent some time working as a prostitute, but none of that necessarily means that she has to be exclusively heterosexual, and after her relationship with Wade ended so badly it's not so much of a stretch to imagine her wanting to steer clear of men for a while. Some of Vanessa's horror at seeing Sluggo shoot Tina came from the fact that, in her own words, 'he used to love her', though it's notable that she says nothing explicit about whether Tina ever loved him back (and even if Tina had, it must have been well into the past tense). Meanwhile, Tina and Vanessa are clearly having a ball together for the few pages they get before Deadpool shows up, and we're shown that Vanessa worries about Tina's opinion of her is and devastated by her death (for all of about two panels, but that's about as long a mourning period as you can expect for any minor character in a title like this). They don't really come across as girlfriends, IMO, but as ex-girlfriends who are still on friendly terms? Easily.
Approaching it from another angle, one of the more interesting details about Deadpool's whole massive, unresolved thing for Vanessa is the later revelation that it had originally been him who left her back when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and decided it was better to leave than to put her through that. I'm just saying, it would explain a lot about his later behaviour if he'd come back - alive against all odds and more than a little deranged - only to find her shacked up with some girl and completely over him.
But what really makes those panels stand out is that, even without the slash goggles, there's at least this little voice in the back of my head wondering if, just maybe, that was how those scenes were intended to be read.
While I'm on the subject of 'stuff I noticed in old X-Force issues', I thought I'd also share a couple of extracts from a letter that was published at the end of New Mutants #100 which, in retrospect, was quite the sign of things to come. Keep in mind, to this point Deadpool has appeared all of once, and for all of a handful of pages.
Have to admit, I would not have minded seeing that version of canon. (It goes without saying that I really don't think Good Intentions would be quite what he had in mind.)
Before we give the guy too much credit for his good taste, I should mention that he also talked about how all the other characters except Cable and Domino were 'stupid', and how he thought Liefeld's art was 'fantastic'. Though even he, Liefeld fanboy to the core, pointed out that Liefeld had a ridiculous habit of drawing Cable far too big. I think I'll just let that statement speak for itself.
For context on the first scene that got my attention, after having her cover blown and leaving X-Force, Vanessa spends a couple of issues hiding out in the house of an old friend called Tina Valentino. During which, the following exchange occurs:
“I've seen you every which way I possibly could,” says Tina. Uh-huh.
Running into a line with that much subtext does make you wonder a little. See, the thing about the old X-Force issues is that, despite the cringe-worthy EXTREEEEME nineties approach to most of action and storytelling, there is the odd moment of uncharacteristic subtlety here and there in how certain details get introduced. For example, when Deadpool first shows up and his response to taking a nasty blow to the face is to announce, “Think you just broke my jaw, Nathan. I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!!” (and then to go right on fighting and talking, clearly none the worse for it), it gives you a reasonably effective way of establishing that he's got a healing factor without having it spelt out explicitly. Maybe not Eisner-nomination material, but given that this is back in the same era when you could have been forgiven for thinking that Superboy was incapable of activating his tactile telekinesis without first telling the audience all about it, it did kinda impress me. (Considering all the other glaring inconsistencies that plagued those early issues, I suppose it's also possible that they hadn't even decided that Deadpool had a healing factor yet, that the 'keeps talking with a broken jaw' thing was purely meant to show what an incomprehensible badass he was, and that I'm giving the whole exchange entirely too much credit, but I still like to think that's what they were going for.)
Even so, the world seen through the slash goggles can be a pretty warped place, and in context, it's just as logical to interpret that line to mean Tina's seen Vanessa go through the emotional turmoil of her break up with Wade, and seen her morphed into any number of weird and disturbing forms before (and what with the middle name and all it does come across as sort of motherly), as it does to interpret it to mean that Tina's seen her naked from every possible angle, right? So once I was done with the juvenile sniggering at that bit of debatable sexual innuendo, I was pretty much ready to put it out of my mind.
That was when I ran into the next scene.
Context for this one: following the first scene, Tina discovers that Vanessa's morphed into a perfect copy of her. Tina must have dealt with this much better than Vanessa expected, because next we see the two of them are out on the town together, having a good time pretending to be identical twins. This comes to an abrupt end when they run into Deadpool and another random thug called Sluggo, who shoots and kills Tina. Horrified, Vanessa runs home alone, but Deadpool and Sluggo catch up with her.
I never liked what you and her had together, says Deadpool. Who, I point out, is Vanessa's ex, and at this stage of the story still badly not over her. This is a guy who has, in recent issues, gone out of his way to find excuses to refer to her as 'his babe', and who's taken far too much pleasure in being given the excuse to rough her up for comfort (it probably goes without saying that Deadpool was written as a much less sympathetic character in those early days). This is, in short, a guy with some dangerous unresolved jealousy issues. And look how he phrases it: not I never liked her anyway, it's quite specifically, I never liked what you and her had together. If you look sideways and squint you can maybe see it as an indication of Wade's obseesion with her having gone completely over the top, but it's the kind of statement that's subtext goes well past where it's actually harder to interpret as anything other than a reference to Vanessa and Tina having been romantically involved.
Looking at it from the perspective of a slasher, there's also a pretty good supply of supporting 'evidence' in the surrounding material. Vanessa has canonically loved at least three men (Wade, Cable and Kane) and spent some time working as a prostitute, but none of that necessarily means that she has to be exclusively heterosexual, and after her relationship with Wade ended so badly it's not so much of a stretch to imagine her wanting to steer clear of men for a while. Some of Vanessa's horror at seeing Sluggo shoot Tina came from the fact that, in her own words, 'he used to love her', though it's notable that she says nothing explicit about whether Tina ever loved him back (and even if Tina had, it must have been well into the past tense). Meanwhile, Tina and Vanessa are clearly having a ball together for the few pages they get before Deadpool shows up, and we're shown that Vanessa worries about Tina's opinion of her is and devastated by her death (for all of about two panels, but that's about as long a mourning period as you can expect for any minor character in a title like this). They don't really come across as girlfriends, IMO, but as ex-girlfriends who are still on friendly terms? Easily.
Approaching it from another angle, one of the more interesting details about Deadpool's whole massive, unresolved thing for Vanessa is the later revelation that it had originally been him who left her back when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and decided it was better to leave than to put her through that. I'm just saying, it would explain a lot about his later behaviour if he'd come back - alive against all odds and more than a little deranged - only to find her shacked up with some girl and completely over him.
But what really makes those panels stand out is that, even without the slash goggles, there's at least this little voice in the back of my head wondering if, just maybe, that was how those scenes were intended to be read.
While I'm on the subject of 'stuff I noticed in old X-Force issues', I thought I'd also share a couple of extracts from a letter that was published at the end of New Mutants #100 which, in retrospect, was quite the sign of things to come. Keep in mind, to this point Deadpool has appeared all of once, and for all of a handful of pages.
Have to admit, I would not have minded seeing that version of canon. (It goes without saying that I really don't think Good Intentions would be quite what he had in mind.)
Before we give the guy too much credit for his good taste, I should mention that he also talked about how all the other characters except Cable and Domino were 'stupid', and how he thought Liefeld's art was 'fantastic'. Though even he, Liefeld fanboy to the core, pointed out that Liefeld had a ridiculous habit of drawing Cable far too big. I think I'll just let that statement speak for itself.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 04:53 pm (UTC)Personally, I've been convinced by your reasoning!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 01:50 am (UTC)Overthinking is pretty much my default state of being. >.>
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 07:39 pm (UTC)Also stop making me want to read those old X-Force issues :p
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 12:10 am (UTC)This!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 01:45 am (UTC)I have such a weird love-hate relationship with the old X-Force. They're mostly pretty crap, but there are some interesting ideas and some characters I realy liked here and there, and since I wasn't expecting even that much it stands out more.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 01:01 pm (UTC)It says a lot about the western comic book industry that six-head-shoulders guy only pinged me as being a little over-exaggerated, doesn't it?