How the X-Men Orphaned Me To a 2000
AD Foster Home Where I Was Abused and Loved It
Toby McCasker
I did some growing up on a tiny island
country in the South Pacific called Vanuatu. You can drive around the
capital Port Vila, where I lived and wore no underpants ‘cos it was
fucking hot, in like three hours. That’s it. That’s the place.
It’s lovely. Everyone’s nice, and the natives are simply too
good-natured to even think about discriminating against the white
minority busy dodging tax on their fair island – most of whom are
too ignorant to pick up even the most basic of Bislama in return
(it’s a phonetic Creole language that’s only 5,000 words big,
ffs). This kind of racial harmony was a great thing to see at a young
age. Thing is, Vanuatu is also really boring. What’s a kid
to do but thieve imported Marvel comics from the local South African
mixed business? They all had the tops of their covers shorn off for
some reason, so for ages I thought I was reading about the many
misadventures of the A-Meii.
Thus my comic fixation started with the
Uncanny X-Men, circa early ‘90s. This was about the time Bishop had
come back from his crappy future to do some badass shit and Storm had
become the leader of the gross Morlocks. Good stuff, and I loved it
for years afterwards. Remember Magneto magnetising all the adamantium
out of Wolvie and then he got his own hairy series for a while where
whenever he popped his shitty bone claws he’d bleed liters?
Awesome. And then that asshole Cyber stomped on them one time and
they were all twisty and crazy for ages. The X-Men were the only
comic superheroes I liked, and could relate to. Everything else
seemed just a bit too hokey and I never understood how anyone gave a
fuck about some eligible bachelor flying around in his underwear or a
guy with the miraculous power to have tiny wings on his ankles. The
X-Men were and are real talk, despite the fact that if you take their
collective name out of context you wander into a transgender
surreality. They resonated with how much of an outsider my unorthodox
upbringing was totally making me.
And I had a massive crush on
Rogue, you don’t even know.
A coupla years later after relocating
to Melbourne, Australia, I was something like twelve years old and
X-lurve had gotten me into the habit of spending hours in the news
agency. I’d just go crazy for all the cool mags and shit they had
on the shelves, I don’t know what my goddamn problem was.
Invariably I’d end up lashing all my pocket money on anything that
looked awesome. One time I bought this thing I’d never heard of, a
soft-cover copy of a 2000 AD graphic novel called Indigo Prime:
Killing Time. It was full of Jack the Ripper brutally dissecting
prostitutes and all kinds of virulent psychosexuality and was pretty
much the most fucked thing I’d ever seen at that point, and it
scarred me for life. It was a cool scar, though. The kind you show
off to people you find attractive and then a knowing wink passes
between you, with sex very much on the cards. Speaking pretty
broadly, it spurred in me an attempted understanding of and a
definite appreciation for all things totally out there. If it weren’t
for Killing Time, I would be a relatively normal human being.
As it slouches, it went on to profoundly inform everything I became
enamoured with from then ‘til now: Underground metal, arthouse
films, disgusting VHS horror movies, even the way I dressed (which
was weirdly, and everyone always gave me shit for how strange I
looked and how long my hair was). I’d even go so far as to say my
worldview was altered by what became constant weekly exposure to 2000
AD’s magazine apropos. Certainly the inside of my head exploded
with thoughts and ideas and artistry that set me apart from 100% of
the schoolyard. Even the token smelly kid looked at me like I
was Ed Norton in a Fight Club carpark.
And I had a massive crush on
Durham Red, jesus ass, you are not even aware. No, seriously. Here is
a picture someone drew of her eating my dick:
It got to the point where I insisted I
was gonna rename myself “Finn” after I discovered “Rogue
Trooper” would probably be shortened to “Rog” by most lazy
Australians. Finn and Rogue Trooper were two of my favourite
stories alongside Strontium Dogs (post-Johnny Alpha era, The Gronk
forevs), Sláine, ABC Warriors, Outlaw, Flesh, Tyranny Rex (babe),
Cannon Fodder (shades of Killing Time here)… the list is
epic and always distinguished. To this day I don’t know who the
fuck Tharg the Mighty is. Mayhap he is an ideal like Batman
but with more intergalactic vernacular, but whoever has long
been the impetus behind this magazine was/is brilliant beyond
considerable measure. At some point in the mid-‘90s, they must’ve
worked out a crazy tie-in ad deal with EA for the release of Urban
Strike. Remember those games? You were in a helicopter and flew
around blowing shit up on your Sega, winching pixel men to safety
even worse danger. Part of this deal must’ve included “in-mag
crossover content” or whatever the fuck stupid ad people in
double-breasted wool suits talk about. 2000 AD ran with this so hard
I couldn’t believe it, putting out a five–episode Urban Strike
story that was totally brutal and subversive and all of its
characters fucking died horribly and I think the world also ended.
Here is a comic that can even make advertising obligations
awesome, over a period of five weeks, while clearly maintaining a
strong deficit of fucks with which to donate.
And without it, I’d have an all-year
tan, a vapid wife who used to be hot but is now fat, two shitty kids,
a white picket fence and a completely unnecessary Range Rover in the
backyard of our presentable house in a quiet suburb where everybody
says “Hey champ!” but really they’re all committing incest.
Fucking thank you.
*
Toby McCasker
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