Generation X 49er

Generation X #49
“Trophies”
Story: Jay Faerber
Pencils: Terry Dodson*
Inks: Rachel Dodson*
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Colorist: Feliz Serrano
Cover: Dodsons
Editor: Frank Pittarese
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Published by: Marvel
Released: Jan. 13, 1999

With the Kansas City Chiefs returning to the Super Bowl this year, I didn't have to find a new comic book analogue for them: Niles Caulder, aka the Doom Patrol-founding Chief, still works. With as many times as he and his team have been rebooted and retconned, I probably could have used another of the first appearances. Maybe next year.

I wasn't sure what I would do if the Detroit Lions had pulled off the upset in the NFC title game. I hadn't really given it much thought because, improved though they were, I didn't expect them to get to that level, much less win and reach the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history.

You would think the San Francisco 49ers would pose more of a challenge, but I've known which issue I would use for them since before their disastrous loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in last year's NFC championship.

Sure, the 49er name references the gold rush of 1849, and I could have gone with my personal favorite time-traveling hero Booster Gold or relatively obscure Marvel villain Goldbug.** Heck, it might have finally been time to read about Alchemy and the Troll Associates in something other than a TSR Marvel Super-Heroes Roleplaying Game supplement.

Or I could just go with the number.

A comic reaching a 49^th issue is a rarity these days. Heck, so's 19. There are still plenty of numbers 49 to choose from, but one is seared into my brain because of the presence of one of my favorite X-Men: Generation X #49, guest-starring Maggott.

Generation X launched when I was actively collecting the X-books. New Mutants had long since evolved into X-Force when I started buying “X-Cutioner's Song” as a financial investment. But this was a new generation of hyped-up characters I could read about from the ground floor.

So I did, although I was probably buying it more out of force of habit by 1999. I only had about a year left in my tenure with the students from the Massachusetts Academy, and though I still thought Synch and Chamber were cool, the novelty had worn off.

But Maggott was coming, and I was ready for it.

You might remember Maggott from being briefly Australian before he joined the X-Men alongside Cecilia Reyes and Marrow and was retconned as South African. He could turn blue and was super-strong and frequently accompanied by two metallic creatures he called Eany and Meany. You could be forgiven for thinking they were maggots, given his name, but they were bassically his intestines.

Maggott's mutant power was that he had an independent, autonomous digestive system in the form of the creatures. Some people might think that was gross, but hunter extraordinaire Constantine Slaughter (think a grim-and-gritty Yukon Cornelius) considered them a challenge. He's stalking Eany and Meany through the snow outside the Massachusetts Academy when this particular issue opens. Maggott has just arrived at the school, for reasons in the X-Men books that I can't remember but I assume had something to do with being cooler than Wolverine.

He's playing basketball with Chamber, Synch and Skin, and Chamber, when the student body's female contingent arrives. Maggott is awash in hormones, as evidenced by the hearts that appear around his head when Paige Guthrie, aka Husk, walks into the gym with M, Jubilee and someone identified as Gaia, who a quick perusal of the Marvel Fandom wiki indicates I should remember but don't. That's OK, though, as the ladies are about to leave this issue for a shopping excursion, while the fellas plan to go sledding.

Meanwhile, Headmistress Emma Frost is seeking a financial bailout from her sister, Adrienne, who I distinctly remember did something at some point in the Generation X run. But it didn't involve Maggott, so, moving on.

Slaughter tags Eany and Meany with tranquilizer darts, which immediately causes Maggott pain because, well, have you ever been shot in the digestive system with tranquilizer darts? Me neither, but I imagine it's uncomfortable. Slaughter tells the guys to back off and let him collect his trophies so he can be off to respond to a copyright infringement lawsuit from Kraven the Hunter.***

Synch borrows Chamber's powers and attacks, but Slaughter grounds him with a net, then slows down Chamber with some goo he brags once helped him “wrangle a winged horse on Asgard.” After an interlude in which Emma pleads with her sister for financial help to keep the school's doors open, we find the quartet of male mutants trussed up as Slaughter departs with Eany and Meany. Synch decides to copy Maggott's powers, causing his own digesti-slugs to emerge from his body and devour their bonds, despite Maggott warning him of the intense pain he'll experience.

Freed, the teens track down Slaughter, and Maggott re-establishes mental contact with the slugs, who wake up and eat their way out of the bag in which Slaughter is carrying them, then start munching on his weapons. When Maggott confronts the hunter, Slaughter uses a flash bomb to disappear but not before talking about other creatures he'd like to acquire, including mutants.**** Maggott decides he'll be going after Slaughter. Like a responsible teacher and superhero, Banshee … lets him?

Emma returns, catching a stray thought from Maggott wondering about her lingerie-like costumes (hormones!). Banshee explains Maggott was “gonna attend school here. And now he's not.” Then Emma introduces her sister as the new headmistress, and we're done.

I remember hoping Maggott would join the cast because he would fit right in with the oddballs like Chamber and Skin and, oh yeah, he's cool. But apparently this was just a one-and-done guest shot, which, OK, but the way in which they explained him away was pretty weird. I get that he may have felt some responsibility to stop Slaughter since he targeted his guts, but, if Banshee was really wanting him to be a student, why didn't he stop him or try to help him? Or either one of them could have called the X-Men. I know Slaughter initially came out on top against four mutants, but this really seems like a problem Wolverine could solve in a day or less.

So the story was flimsy, but fun in general. We got an adventure with a guest star with an X-Men pedigree, albeit brief, and the advancement of ongoing subplots with Emma trying to save the school from financial trouble and establishing the conflict with her sister in Adrienne's first full appearance.

The Dodsons' art is familiar, and I associate it with Generation X s much as Chris Bachalo's. It doesn't work for me in every title, but it certainly does here.

Maggott kind of disappeared after this, at least on my radar. I presume his off-panel pursuit was successful since the Fandom wiki lists this as Slaughter's only appearance. Or maybe Kraven got him.

Clearly my Generation X knowledge is a little rusty. It was nice to see Synch demonstrate the toughness and leadership capabilities we've seen in recent stories. Seems like they were extrapolated from those earlier appearances, rather than foisted upon him just to tell a particular story.

I read somewhere that Maggott died, but he, and just about every other mutant, even Lifeguard and Slipstream, returned in the Krakoan era. Maggott popped up here and there before finally getting the spotlight in the X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic on Marvel Unlimited a while back.

The Krakoan era seems to be ending badly for just about everyone at the moment, but I hope to see Maggott back again one day. It doesn't have to be on an X-team consisting of him, Dazzler, Gambit, Broo, X-23, Madrox and Layla Miller, but I wouldn't turn it down.

* - Dodson! We've got Dodson here!

** - I still associate that name more with the little insect that kept showing up in a Richard Scarry book I read as a kid.

*** - Not really. But I bet She-Hulk would represent Kraven.

**** - Which Kraven did in recent issues of X-Force.