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In which an event begins; Earth is problematic; the Phoenix Force is an unreliable narrator; Max Power just wants to make safer party drugs; and we miss Opal Tanaka.
X-PLAINED:
- The fate of the D’Bari
- Maximum Security: Dangerous Planet
- Maximum Security #1
- Uncanny X-Men #387
- Iron Man #35
- Bishop the Last X-Man #15
- Voting in space
- A bad plan
- U.S. Agent (John Walker)
- A peculiar marketplace
- A dangerous hat
- Starhammer
- Space romance problems
- Breaking into Earth
- Max Power
- Magic dirt
- Littletown, Nebraska
- An extremely upsetting baby
- A very impressive crash landing
- What Bishop’s been up to
- Human X-characters we’d like to see more of
- Some kid named Michael
- Trading cards we’d like
NEXT EPISODE: Maximum Security concludes!
The visual companion to this episode will be up later this week!
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Love the green robot alien, that has the scaled-down version of himself, his little buddy, that comes and goes out of the compartment in his back 🤘🏻🫀.
And the action figure!
Random observations time
A little research tells me that the whole “Maximum Security” thing was put together by Kurt Busiek “in self defence” because editorial told him that they wanted a crossover, and if he didn’t come up with one, he’d be having to deal with someone’s else. And his original plot was called “Y2KANG” involving Kang the Conqueror, on the stroke of midnight on 1st January 2000, altering time so it was now 1st January 1900, and all the characters would be altered to be period appropriate (much like the Busiek/Perez Avengers launch story with Morgana Le Faye’s creating the medieval Avengers), and the only reason it wasn’t used was by the time it was agreed, the first issue wouldn’t have come out until April 2000, which would be a little too late. But I digress…
Worth mentioning perhaps that USAgent is given his new role by none other than Dr Valerie Cooper.
I’m curious how Bishop can plow through 28 decks and survive, and then be knocked out by Deathbird hitting him with a stick, unless it was a desperately convenient “straw that breaks the camel’s back” moment.
Hank’s little comment about feeling that Kelly might have a point comes immediately after Jean reads the minds of a couple of unsuspecting people, more for her own convenience than anything, so his complicated feelings seem to be to be less “self reflection”, and more “subtle warning to Jean”.
I always feel it’s a shame when a member of the Imperial Guard isn’t based on a Legion of Superheroes character, who were their master template after all. (Yes, the new ones from Dark Phoenix Saga onwards like WarStar (love those guys, who I always associate with Master.Blaster from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome), Hussar and Manta are the start of a downward spiral leading to Webwing (Who seems like another Bodybag fetish variant with its swallowing victims and then coating them with sedative excretions).
Given her role, I find it harder to like Lilandra than many. She’s in personal charge of an Empire which has committed so many war crimes (and will commit many, many more) that any attempt to redeem her ethically seems doomed before it starts, as the best she ever seems to manage is to maintain the status quo, which is cruel and inhumane.
Has anyone considered putting Deathbird and Mystique on the same team, or possibly just as a double act? Their constant backstabbing and conniving might cancel each other out, or at least be amusing to read.
My random thoughts as well:
I pretty much only read the parts of Maximum Security that overlapped with over books because those issues don’t really need to tie into the main part. I finally went ahead and read the main story recently. The biggest surprise to me is that Guardians of the Galaxy 2 drew its Ego story from this event. Before then, I had assumed that was an entirely original plot point. I was pleasantly surprised to see it has a comics origin.
Re: Cerise, in other books, prisoners arrive on Earth through portals. The easiest way to get in, if you don’t care about getting out, would be through a portal.
Re: Ben Grimm’s intelligence: There’s actually a silver age issue of Fantastic Four where Reed calls Ben out on this. He says “you went to college same as me, you aren’t as dumb as you’re pretending.”
…Goofus and Gambit?