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Quasar #8Issue(s): Quasar #8 Review/plot: Quasar winds up involved in that plot because he is still investigating all of the aliens on Earth as part of his job of protecting the cosmic being Eon, who is aware that he's going to be attacked by a being from space. To start with in this issue, he visits the New Mutants, because of Warlock. It's not supposed to, but the whole scene of an Avenger swooping down and demanding that a member of a mutant team show his papers has a very authoritarian feel to me. ![]() ![]() As depicted, the whole thing is just played for cutesy fun... ![]() ...but Quasar really should learn to be more polite. He was similarly rude to Spider-Man last issue, and wound up in a fight because of it. When he's harassing characters that are Marvel's metaphor for minority groups, it takes on a different tone. Especially when he's leaving and he says, "Keep him out of trouble now." Pompous prick. ![]() Also, Cannonball's accent in the above panels is just terrible. I guess the New Mutants are lucky, because Quasar reports back to Eon that he's found and cleared a Technarch, and then cuts Eon off before Eon tells him that Technarchs are dangerous planet destroyers. I also wonder where the New Mutants are supposed to be in the above scene. They're wearing their pre-Rob Liefeld costumes, but they say that they have to tell Cable about this brush with authority. In the opening splash, the lines on the building look like high tech shorthand, suggesting that they might be on X-Factor's Ship. But subsequent panels make it look like a regular building. And if Quasar is hunting down alien signatures, you'd think the giant alien building that dwarfs every other skyscraper in Manhattan might attract his interest. The next alien that Quasar detects is at Project Pegasus. Quasar gets there to find the front door wide open and the power disabled. He finds an employee named Helen Carver, who says that the building was evacuated after the outage but she got trapped behind because she went to grab some floppy discs that she's responsible for. Quasar sends her to the surface. ![]() It seems this scene should just be taken at face value. Carver isn't secretly a super-villain or anything stealing the discs. She really does seem to just be a Project Pegasus employee with no further appearances. Investigating further, Quasar finds Blue Shield wrapped in a metal cocoon. ![]() Blue Shield is the current Project Pegasus security chief, filling the role that Quasar used to occupy before he quit due to his self-perceived failures. Coming up behind the two heroes is our Secret Wars tie-in. ![]() The creature is an alien life form that was unwittingly brought back to Earth after Mr. Fantastic repaired Iron Man (James Rhodes)'s armor during Secret Wars. Just like Spider-Man's black costume, it turns out the materials used in the repairs are sentient. The creature also spews a digestive venom that dissolves whatever it touches , allowing the creature to eat it up, like a fly. ![]() The creature's dissolving abilities even affect Quasar's light powers. Blue Shield's forcefield holds up a little better. But Blue Shield is despondent, because the creature has already killed 15 of his guards. Quasar quickly dubs the creature "Omnivore". ![]() Now, Quasar shouldn't really know anything about Omnivore, but he has Eon to provide exposition. I don't really see this as a great role for Eon, either. I can see Eon providing general information about an alien race, but i don't feel like he should know the specific history of a specific alien. But obviously i'm wrong, since Eon is able to give Quasar the full story about Iron Man's gauntlet repair during Secret Wars and then how he abandoned the gloves when he got back to Earth because they weren't working. Quasar gets rid of Omnivore by tossing it in Project Pegasus' magma tap. ![]() It seems that Project Pegasus may be being naughty here. We first saw the magma tap in Avengers #236, but i thought they shut it down after they realized that they were affecting the Magma Men. It seemed inert in Fantastic Four #313 when the FF used it as a way to get into Subterranea. Here, it's a raging inferno the second Quasar opens the lid. Maybe that's why Dr. DeVere was acting so menacingly in FF #313. Anyway, with the fight over, Quasar tries to give Blue Shield a pep talk, so that he doesn't go through what Quasar went through after his failure. ![]() But, hilariously, it doesn't work at all. ![]() We never got an exact explanation for why Rhodey's gauntlets didn't work when he got back to Earth. I was actually pretty ok with "because it's a different planet and it was alien technology, and who cares?". But i guess this does count as being part of the Quasar series' remit to explore the forgotten nooks and crannies of the Marvel universe. Still, what can you say about the issue where Quasar fought Iron Man's old gloves? A blurb in the lettercol informs us that there will be no more science pieces like the ones we've had in past issues (although it does point to a contemporary New York Times article describing how light can bind matter, which is said to be an explanation for how Quasar's powers work). Quality Rating: C- Chronological Placement Considerations: See above regarding the New Mutants. The MCP place this after New Mutants #91, but it might better fit between New Mutants #89 (when they meet Cable) and #90-91 (when they design new costumes), especially since Warlock disappears after #89. I have not tagged Ship as a Character Appearing (and neither does the MCP). Quasar's appearances in Quasar #9 and #10 take place concurrently with Avengers #314-318, so this issue takes place prior to that. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (3): showCharacters Appearing: Blue Shield, Cannonball, Eon, Myron Wilburn, Omnivore, Quasar, Sunspot, Warlock Comments"Still, what can you say about the issue where Quasar fought Iron Man's old gloves?" Well, to be fair, it was Iron Man's old gloves AND backpack ;) Posted by: Bill | April 27, 2015 7:40 PM It doesn't seem consistent with Iron Man 183 that Jim was near Project Pegasus when he ditched the gloves-it seemed like he was a few miles outside New York City. Posted by: Michael | April 27, 2015 8:50 PM Its funny that you say Quasar needs to learn to be more polite, since one of his main character traits (at least in the early days of the series) is how he was so polite, almost to a fault. ;) Although I see where you're coming from with the whole Mutant/minority thing, I'm not really sure I'd consider Quasar's actions here to be "harassing" or his tone to be particularly rude. Investigating alien life forms on Earth IS his job, and he was certainly a lot more civil about it than some other characters or agencies would have been. I can easily see someone like Henry Gyrich sending someone to have the New Mutants interrogated for harbouring a potentially dangerous "illegal alien" on Earth, and having Warlock taken into custody for tests. In comparison to that, Quasar flying up, asking some questions and then leaving them in peace after taking them at their word seems pretty friendly. ;) Posted by: Dermie | April 30, 2015 11:16 PM Incidentally, that Henry Peter Gyrich plot DID end up happen Posted by: Jon Dubya | May 14, 2015 9:15 PM I was still enjoying Quasar despite Paul Ryan leaving. I thought the origin of Omnivore was inventive. The premise that Quasar investigate known aliens on Earth by confronting and then questioning them was silly. Obviously an alien that would pose such a threat to Eon would be stealthy and clever. Any other alien would of course deny that they would be a threat. Posted by: Grom | August 14, 2015 8:52 AM I'm pretty sure this was more a spoof of Venom than an attempt to cash in on him. Based on Quasar #6, I'd say Gruenwald didn't much care for Venom. Posted by: Omar Karindu | November 10, 2015 3:18 PM Although the art might make the building look like a regular structure, the first panel of the the first page specifies that it was the roof of "the New Mutants headquarters." Which means since they are wearing the Blevins costumes, this has to be Ship, since they are still in New York, presumably about to vacate to the mansion underground complex. This being the case, doesn't this affect the placement and require Ship's appearance to referenced? Posted by: Brian C. Saunders | June 28, 2018 12:07 PM Can you imagine what might have happened if Quasar asked Eon to give him info on the Technarch? Sam should have mentioned that Warlock was a mutant of his race at least. That could have gone very badly...! Posted by: Jay Demetrick | June 29, 2018 12:21 AM Sorry, I finally looked at where the placement actually was, you've got this after NM#89 after all, so that is fine with me. Adding Ship seems like a good idea, though. Posted by: Brian C. Saunders | June 29, 2018 9:01 AM Yeah, as Omar states this is a Venom parody. The plot is silly. but then many people thought Spider-Man having fights with his evil costume was also silly, it's just forgotten now due to Venom's popularity. The "Secret Wars" nabisco on the corner is kinda amusing, though I think a later comic (maybe a Deadpool?) will do the same joke, so it's no longer the last tie-in. Maybe it's a bad sign that Quasar is already doing such a silly plot by his 8th issue. I think Gruenwald did miss a trick by not having Hulk's evil leg brace make an appearance, though that would have tipped his hand & made it a pure farce, while I think he was aiming for a drier "dumb idea taken seriously" parody, your mileage may vary as to how successful that was. (Does anyone remember what happened to the leg brace? Could it still be at large, committing all sorts of horrors?) Posted by: Jonathan, son of Kevin | June 29, 2018 11:14 AM How was the leg brace "evil?" Surely it wasn' any more evil than She-Hulk's new costume. Now Professor X's costume.... that was pretty evil.... Posted by: Brian C. Saunders | June 29, 2018 11:27 AM In regards to Deadpool's involvement in Secret Wars, there were two comics that tied into both Secret Wars - https://www.comics.org/issue/1357253/cover/4/? Original Secret Wars https://www.comics.org/issue/62350/cover/4/ Secret Wars 2 Posted by: clyde | June 29, 2018 12:56 PM Agreed, though I think you're thinking of the costume Xavier gets just after Secret Wars, which is similar to the Secret Wars one but modified to make it infinitely worse, with a bigger X connecting like suspenders to some thigh boots. (see UXM #189 for example...) I have no evidence but I wonder if Claremont told Romita Jr to make the costume a bit kinkier, & Romita didn't know how to deliver that, which is how it ended up as something the Wasp would reject as a bit too much? It was close to UXM #192 where Nocenti stopped Claremont from doing a story with Xavier wearing women's clothes, so Claremont settled for Xavier being dressed in Morlock bondage leather instead. And later, Claremont will do a joke scene in UXM #254 where a new team of X-Men all accidentally get kinkier costumes, all stockings & thigh boots. (They are attempting to get changed into Moira's new body armour versions of the classic yellow X-Men uniforms, which are themselves quickly modified by either Claremont or Lee into thong versions of the same outfits. I think in-story the outfits are modified by Forge, but I'm not sure why he decided that change offered extra protection.) Romita Jr did design Prowler, Hobgoblin, Typhoid Mary etc so it's not like his costume designs are always that terrible. Hulk was given a leg brace & a crutch, either one of those could have turned out to be evil. Posted by: Jonathan, son of Kevin | June 29, 2018 12:59 PM Thanks Clyde, turns out it was Deadpool Team-Up #1 I was thinking of that also uses the Secret Wars II nabisco. Who knew Deadpool gets his jokes from Quasar? Posted by: Jonathan, son of Kevin | June 29, 2018 1:04 PM @Brian - i discussed, and dismissed, the possibility of Ship's appearance in the entry. Posted by: fnord12 | July 16, 2018 4:13 PM Comments are now closed. |
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